The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-03
THE GREAT GRANARY
Food for Millions Stored at the
Elevator.
SHIPPING HOUSE OPENED HERE.
Three Trains . Day Bringing Wheat
Here-A Wilderness of Sacks-Seat-
tie As Grain Port.

Enough wheat is stored in the big grain ware
house and elevator on the west side OF the har-
Dor TO fill the pinched stomachs OF whole Rus
sian province. It has been coming in to the city
in a steady stream OF forty to fifty car loads a
day, and sacks have been piled up in the long
white building until the whole upper floor is
covered, and another week would ind the lower
floor and the elevator bins also filled If no ships
came TO carry the vast store to the furnishing
millions of Europe.
Two regular and one extra freight trains are
required daily TO bring the wealth of Eastern
washington and Oregon over the Northern Pa
clhc railroad to this city, where it is hauled
across the bay on the Terminal railway to the
elevator. There the cars stand on a
sidetraek beside the warehouse. ana
gang of eight men, unloads q car
and wheels its contents on sacks through each
OF six doors in the side OF the building. Five
sacks, each weighing about 135 pounds, form
load for truck and are weighed together. As
the sacks come out of the car each one is in
spected and graded by a regular inspector.
linen they are stacked eight high on the noor,
that being as high as man can reach without
platform. Each car contains on an average
300 sacks, which are unloaded, inspected,
weighed and stacked in about thirty minutes.
Between seventy and eighty men are now en-
ployed in two nine hour shifts, and they return
a train empty about six hours after receiving it
loaded
The second floor is reached by a track which
runs up an in cline from the main track right
into the main building, and on which twelve
cars can be unloaded simultaneously. 1t is now
full, there being no room to pile another sack.
The floor is hidden by nearly 200 600 sacks, the
soiidity of the mass being broken only by an
occasional narrow alley. As one stands on tn,
stacks and chances from end to end and side
to side of the vast building. 520x125 feet, one
may imagine that the spectacle is that of vast
- l,1 -
stockyards, the curved sides of the sacks re-
sembiing the backs of the hogs. The wheat is
all of No. milling grade, the varieties being
club, blue stem and a little red chat. There are
in all about $4,000 sacks of wheat on the two
floors OF the warehouse, part of which is taken
up by $1,000 barrels OF Portland cement.
In addition to this about $1,000 bushels are
stored in bulk in the elevator. This wheat is
shoveled out of the cars into receiver on the
ground floor, from which it is carried up the
elevator in buckets on an endless belt $50 feet
long and twenty-four inches wide, running in
shafts to the top floor. There it drops into
chutes which run il into hoppers, where it is
weighed and whence it drops into the bins,
occupying the height of two stories, and having
capacity of 100000 bushels.
Such vast store of grain naturally offers
great attractions to rats, and the working force
of the building includes fifteen to twenty cats
and half dozen terriers, whose duties are to
kill these plunderers.
The banking business growing out of the ex-
port OF such vast amount of grain naturally
increases to a large degree the clearings of the
Seattle banks as well as the business of indi-
vidual banks. During the last season this bust
ness was done through the Portland banks, but
arrangements have now been made by those of
this city to take care of all wheat shipped here.
Although the warehouse is SO nearly full, f.
A. Allen, the manager, has no fear that he will
not be able to accommodate all the wheat that
arrives The ship Queen Elizabeth, of about
2,75o tons burden, arrived at the elevator
on Thursday, and others will follow in quick
succession and take out wheat about as fast as
1t comes in.
The Queen Elizabeth is the first wheat ship
brought here by firm which makes Seattle the
headquarters for both export aud import bust
ness For some weeks Alfred Tucker, repre-
senting Myer, Wilson & Co., of San Francisco,
and its allied firm of Wilson, Myer & Co., of
Liverpool, has been travelling on the Sound, and
after visiting all the principal cities, decided on
Seattle as the best point for the establishment of
branch Office. He has begun business, and the
Queen Elizabeth is the first vessel chartered by
his firm for this port. She has discharged a
cargo of cement at Tacoma, and Myer, Wilson 81
Co. not being quite ready to begin exporting
wheat, she is taking cargo for Caesar & Co., OF
Portland. Captain Myer, the head of the San
Francisco house, is now in Liverpool, and will
return by way of Seattle to make final arrange
ments for opening business here. The firm will
from that time forward send cargoes for Seattle
direct and take return cargoes of wheat to the
United Kingdom. 1t is the first firm to make
this city center for such business