Bryce Township

Bryce Farmers Grain Company

At one time, there were three grain elevators in Milford and two in Bryce. The first grain elevator was built in Milford in 1874 by Charles Jones, after the railroad came through. The railroad was the Chicago, Danville and Vincennes, which later became the Chicago and Eastern Illinois. Today, the railroad serving Milford is the Louisville and Nashville. The Jones elevator burned down in 1876. the second elevator was built by John F. Fairman, a leading grain merchant, in 1877. The third elevator was built by Burt Wilson in 1885 and was situated on the southwest corner of the site of the present Canning Company. BUrt Wilson was a prominent farmer around Amity: (Quincy Hall was his grandson).

The Fairman elevator was sold to C.E. Wilcox and became the Wilcox elevator. This elevator was sold to T.C. (Clyde) and E.S. (Edwin) Herron of Allerton, Illinois for the sum of $5,500 in November 1898. In January of 1899 it burned down completely, before the Herrons had taken possession. Insurance on the elevator amounted to $4,500, ($1,00 with Etna, and $1,500 with Home and $2,000 with the Fire Association of Philadelphia). Wilcox had done extensive remodeling at some expense just the year before. 20,000 bushels of corn and 51,000 bushels of oats were destroyed. An insurance policy on the grain had been taken out the day before the fire! The fire was discovered at 6 a.m. by George Kivell when he started his fires under the boilers and noticed the belt on the elevator shaft had fallen to the lower floor. He looked up the chute and found the top part of the building on fire, whereupon, he ran to the electric light plant and sounded the alarm. The fireman responded immediately but the fire was out of control and they were unable to salvage anything. The elevator was a mass of smoke and ruin.

The Herrons rebuilt that year, taking banker G. F. Patterson as a partner and Thomas Vennum, Jr., as a silent partner. They named it the Herron Patterson Grain Company. Some years later, Patterson and Vennum sold out their interested in the company. The Herrons built another elevator in Bryce, in 1906, after the St. Louis branch of the Chicago and Eastern Illinois railroad came through there. The Herrons had a lumber yard, too, located south of the present office in Bryce.

The elevator at Bryce was name Bryce Farmers Grain Company, since several farmers bought shares in the company, and the elevator in Milford became the Milford Grain Company.

Edwin Herron manager the Milford elevator until he moved to Gilman to live, maintaining his interests in the business, however. Dan Disosway manager the elevator until 1920 when Francis Yant took over. Yant managed the elevator until his death in January 1969, three weeks before his 90th birthday. It might be of interest to note here that Clyde Herron, Dan Disosway and Francis Yant married three sisters, Mayme, Fern and Kate Shaner.

The Milford elevator was closed after Yant's death until February 1970 when Bryce Farmers Grain Company acquired the business and re-opened it as the Milford station of Bryce Farmers Grain Company. The old wooden elevators were torn down ad the present structure built. The old office, which was situated close to the sidewalk, was torn down in 1973 and the present office built, closer to the elevator, giving farmers a large parking area. Lee T. Lautenschlager manages the MIlford station today.

Clyde Herron managed the elevator at Bryce from its inception until his death in May 1931. Mahlon Maxwell Williams took over until his death in September 1949, when Robert Herron became manager. Bob Herron ran the business until his untimely death from leukemia in May 1957. Then Louis Frerichs managed the business for an interim period until Lee Lautenschlager was employed in September 1957. Lee Lautenschlager guided the company through an extensive expansion program. In 1959 a metal storage building for 80,000 bushels of grain was constructed; an addition to the north elevator gave an additional 30,000 bushel capacity. In 1963 the old south elevator was destroyed by fire and replaced the following year with a modern steel and concrete structure with 40,000 bushel capacity. In September 1968, Lee Lautenschlager resigned and Roland Gocken was employed as manager. In July 1969, Lee Lautenschlager purchased controlling interest in the Bryce elevator, retaining Roland Gocken as manager.

The south elevator in Bryce is the site of the second grain elevator there, the W. V. Marshall Grain Company. We regret we have no dates on the Marshall facility. There was a blacksmith's shop back then too, right on the site of the present office, which was run by Franz Schaumburg, who later worked in the elevator until his death in 1917 from a heart attack.

All the old wooden elevators and the old wooden office in Bryce have been replaced through the years, so none of the original buildings stands today. We have no photographs of them, either since the office at Bryce was gutted by fire in June 1979 and they were lost. The records were saved by the painstaking work of Roland Gocken, Arlene Moser and Donna Snow.

The present Board of Directors: Clarence Anderson, Don Hubner, Edwin Janssen, Arnold Smith, Louis Frerichs, Roland Gocken and Lee Lautenschlager, President.

To end on a light note -- some time in the 1920's, at Halloween, some daring prankster took a buggy, presumably in parts, up to the top of the south elevator and re-assembled it atop there. Some trick! Some treat!

We are indebted to Max Crawford, Harm Frerichs and Verla Herron McCullough for help with this history.

(Transcribed from the Milford and vicinity Sesquicentennial Souvenir Book 1830-1980 page 39 by Carrol Mick)

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