How a 40-ton grain elevator crossed over the Rapidan Dam

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RAPIDAN, MINN. – Imagine a six-story building, perched precariously, inching its way across a narrow bridge, a churning river below.

In 1949, that's exactly what happened at the Rapidan Dam near Mankato. A 40-ton, 65-foot-tall grain elevator embarked on an improbable, 8-mile journey.

A crowd of about 2,000 people gathered in August that year to to see if the structure would make it across the dam and then up the steep hill on the other side — or if everything would come tumbling down into the Blue Earth River below.

Jim Miner, 86, said he remembers watching workers move the elevator across the dam. Those childhood memories remain vivid, he said.

Miner asked Curious Minnesota, the Strib's reader-driven reporting project, for details about that day. He wondered: How did they move the elevator those 8 miles from Cray to Rapidan on the other side of the river?

The answer: very, very carefully. And they didn't do it all at once.

Moving the elevator took about a week, said Jane Haala, a local historian and volunteer at the Blue Earth County Historical Society.

Haala, 73, moved to Rapidan, about 8 miles southwest of Mankato, in the 1970s. She said she quickly heard from neighbors tales of where they were the day the grain elevator rolled across the dam.

"That event stands out in their memories so vividly," Haala said.

Preparing for the big move

The town of Rapidan needed a new grain elevator in 1949 because their previous one had burned down, Haala said.

Hubbard and Palmer, a milling company that owned 40 grain elevators around the Mankato area, decided it would be cheaper to move an existing structure than to build a new one, she added.

The nearby community of Cray happened to have an unused elevator, and it wasn't likely to miss it.

Although founded with high hopes in the early 1900s, Cray never became more than a creamery, a train stop, and the grain elevator built in 1906, according to a history by the Blue Earth County Historical Society.

William Reese, a man from Thief River Falls who specialized in moving grain elevators, was in charge of the structure's journey to Rapidan.

Workers began preparing the elevator that June. In late July, they set off, the building balancing on 24 wheels. It was dragged by a heavy-duty former Army truck, Haala said.

It looked like "a lone spider-like truck pulling what appeared to be a mountain," she said.

The workers took the grain elevator along lesser-used gravel roads to avoid traffic. It was so tall that they had to take down power and telephone lines along the way, she added.

It took three or four days to travel the 5 miles from Cray to the Rapidan Dam, Haala said.

Crossing Rapidan Dam

Once they got there, workers spent July 31 preparing the elevator for the crossing. The bridge's guard rails meant they had to lift the massive structure even higher off the ground to get it across.

Meanwhile, a crowd gathered. Farmers took off work, and families packed picnic lunches to watch.

"People weren't entirely sure that this elevator was going to make it to the other side," Haala said. "Many people thought that instead of being taken across it, that it would tip over and end up in the riverbed."

Photos taken on Aug. 1 show the elevator perched precariously on top of the dam, as water roared underneath.

Pulling the elevator across the dam took the whole morning, but the building made it.

On the other side, however, was another hurdle. Workers needed to pull the 40-ton building up the steep, 104-foot-tall hill on the east side of the river bank.

While crossing the dam was the most dramatic part of the journey, going up the hill was the most difficult, Haala said. Four or five additional trucks were needed to pull the elevator up the gravel road.

And the elevator needed to stay level, or in an instant everything could tip over.

Workers would move the elevator a foot forward, lift the whole structure to balance everything, and then repeat the process over and over. They anchored the structure to trees at the top of the hill.

Don Davis, 92, remembers standing on the west side of the dam with his father and uncle, watching the elevator crawl across the dam and up the hill.

"I don't know how they went up that steep hill," Davis said. "They somehow jacked it up to keep it level."

After getting to the top of the hill, the remaining 2 miles of the journey were relatively smooth sailing, and the elevator arrived at its new home on Aug. 4.

A new home

The elevator remains in use in the center of Rapidan today.

"I would guess most people around here don't realize how historical it is," Haala said.

The 119-year-old grain elevator may even soon outlive the Rapidan Dam, which was heavily damaged in flooding last year. Engineers plan to start removing the Rapidan Dam in 2027.

Haala was at the Rapidan Dam during the floods last year, among the crowds that gathered to see the force of the mighty waters scouring away the riverbank.

A similar sense of awe and fear was likely felt by those gathered at the dam 75 years ago, she said, "when that elevator was coming across."

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