The Meadows grain elevator falls

By Morgan Turney

Photos by Felix Lesiuk

The Meadows Paterson grain elevator was turned into a heap of scrap wood on July 18, 2017, just after 12:00 noon. After chewing out the bottom four feet of the elevator footing on the elevator's west side, the contractor wrapped a heavy cable around the elevator cupola and with a few tugs from a large bulldozer, down she came into a heap of lumber and grain dust.

I don't know what it is about the name of Meadows, Perhaps it conjures up memories of a very peaceful place. There isn't much there. A few farms nearby and a homestead just across the street from the Meadows road sign. But it had a Paterson wooden grain elevator, the first one you came across driving westward down Rosser Road.

Rounding a gentle curve just past Rosser, there were two things you could count on seeing. One was an African type tree (it looks like it's from the plains of the Serengeti) in the field on the right hand side of the road. In the distance straight ahead was the Meadows elevator. It served as a familiar landmark to anyone taking the back roads and following the CPR's Carberry subdivision on a rail fan adventure toward Portage la Prairie. Sadly, after July 20, 2017, the African tree is all that's left.

Many of us will miss the Meadows elevator. It was the last one standing on that route after Marquette (another Paterson grain elevator) was pulled down on September 3rd, 2013. 
How sad is it that we destroy our iconic history so willfully, and so thoughtlessly. Meadows is gone forever. All that's left are the photographs and the memories.