| Nocat: | yes |
| Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company Elevator A | |
| Nrhp Type: | cp |
| Partof Refnum: | 71000438 |
| Coordinates: | 44.9797°N -93.2597°W |
| Built: | 1908 |
| Architect: | George T. Honstain, Fred W. Cooley |
| Designated Nrhp Type: | March 11, 1971 |
Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company Elevator A also known as the Ceresota Elevator and "The Million Bushel Elevator" was a receiving and public grain elevator built by the Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company in 1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. The elevator may have been the largest brick elevator ever constructed (brick construction being relatively uncommon) and ran on electricity. The elevator was the source for the Crown Roller Mill and Standard Mill. Those mills closed in the 1950s but the elevator continued in use for grain storage until the mid 1980s. The building is a contributing property of the St. Anthony Falls Historic District listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. For this article north is toward the river.
The Ceresota Elevator stored grain for use in the Crown and Standard flour mills. It had 57 bins, 93feet high and almost all were square. The bin structure, like the building, was brick. There were also vertical spaces for a passenger elevator, stairs and three bucket elevators. Grain came in to the elevator in railroad box cars to a train shed on the north side of the elevator. Grain was dropped into a pit and conveyed to one of two bucket elevators ("legs") that lifted the grain to the head house above the bins. Grain was weighed and cleaned and the grain placed on conveyors on the head house floor above the bins. A moveable "tripper" removed the grain from the conveyor and dropped it through a hole in the floor to the appropriate bin.
For grain that is milled, the grain was emptied out the bottom of a bin to a conveyor to another bucket elevator to the head house. The grain was weighed and sent to an outside overhead conveyor bridge from the head house to the Crown or Standard Mill. Flour milling ended at the Standard Mill in 1948 and at the Crown Mill in 1953. The elevator ran on electricity, probably from the Crown Mill boiler plant addition.[1] The Washburn-Crosby No. 1 Elevator (large diameter concrete elevators adjacent to the Washburn A mill) which was built at about the same time operates substantially the same.
The west bank waterpower area was an industrial wasteland in the mid 1980s. Minneapolis bought the Washburn Elevator #2 and 3 in 1987, the last railroad user, with tracks running past the Ceresota elevator..The elevator was closed. Substantial infrastructure needed to be added to redevelop the area.[2]
The whole block, including Ceresota, was redeveloped by the Hayber Development Group with the last of the property being acquired in 1985. Financing included tax increment financing and a federal grant. Elements of the project were:
Before the work above, the buildings were documented to Historic American Engineering Record standards. Conversion was sensitive to the building history and the remaining buildings are still contributing properties to the historic district.[1]
Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company
St. Anthony Falls Historic District
after the 1983 fire