The Holley-Globe Grain and Milling Company Elevator in Hyrum is being moved in sections. The top and middle third were lifted off the base on Wednesday afternoon.
HYRUM – The top two thirds of the grain elevator located at 100 North Center in Hyrum was separated from its base today. Last week, a crane was brought in to lift the top of the building, but it didn’t have the power to lift the section.
Gary Olsen, of Gary L. Olsen Construction Company, has been getting the Holley-Globe Grain and Milling Company Elevator in Hyrum ready to move since June.
The elevator was purchased by Cache Valley Bank with the idea of incorporating it into the building design of their new branch. They will move the century-old building to the new location at the intersection of Highway 165 and Highway 101, south of the Hyrum Chevron.
A small crowd of people that watched last week returned to see the building finally dismantled.
Olsen said he estimated the top third of the building to weigh 4,500 pounds.
“The crane we had last week couldn’t pick up that much weight,” he said. “We had to get this crane out of Salt Lake, it will lift 275,000 pounds.”
“We have divided the building into thirds, the top we are setting down on the ground,” Olsen added. “We’ll put the middle section on a custom made trailer and take it to the site and set it on a cement base.”
Next, they will take the top section and connect it to the middle level at the new building site.
He poured concrete in it to hold it together for the move, and cut holes to slide I-beams through the walls.
George Daines, Cache Valley Bank CEO, said his mother grew up not far from the grain elevator and she remembered going to the train station nearby and taking the train to Salt Lake City.
“If our goal is to build long-term relationships with our customers,” Daines said, “jumping into beautifying history is an immediate long-term commitment to the community.”
When the bank is finished and everything is in place, he said they would like to set up a viewing area at the top of the old grain elevator so people could climb to the top and look out at the valley. The 68-feet tall stacked plank building was built in 1918.
“It’s quite a view,” Daines said. “It also gives a line of sight for all of our banks in valley. The line of site helps our computers communicate with each other easier.”
When the construction is finished, he would like it to be more of a museum type piece, with interpretive signs and some of the old equipment that shows how the mill operated. According to the building’s registry in the National Register of Historic Places, the elevator is “one of only two known examples in Utah of a grain elevator built using the false timbering construction technique.”
Preserving the old elevator is a visual sign agriculture is important to the bank.