Southwest Manitoba Elevator Trip, Part 5 - The Bottom Left Corner

Back in August 2014 I took two days (Aug 8-9) to photograph every grain elevator in southwest Manitoba. Here's part 1 and part 2 and part 3 and part 4.

After taking a lot of time to take in Elva's two grain elevators, I carried on to complete the southwest corner of Manitoba. First up...

Pierson

The town of Pierson has two grain elevators, an ex Manitoba Pool elevator and a Paterson elevator. Both are now owned by Paterson and are in operation.

The Paterson elevator has that characteristic square top that seems to grace most Patersons. You can see that bins were added on both sides for additional storage.

There is civic pride in many of these Prairie towns.

The former Manitoba Pool elevator has a small Paterson logo on it.

Check out the cool Paterson car by this elevator!

The elevator manager came out and we had a talk for a few minutes. He had a lot of pride in his elevators! Paterson is investing some money in repairs to their elevators to keep them going, which is good to hear.

Here's a view of Pierson from the west side. Pierson is on the CP Estevan subdivision.

After Pierson, I headed south to the most southwest grain elevator in Manitoba.

Lyleton

There is a single surviving elevator in Lyleton, the former Manitoba Pool elevator. Here it is with a grain truck in the foreground. Note the annex doesn't match the elevator... there must be a story there.

The cupola has a bit of a lean to it.

The office has an interesting addition.

I'm not talking about the satellite dish to the right. Note the big pipe running from the office roof to the driveway roof. I guess this was an addition to provide some heating to the driveway! I'm told it's actually for dust collection and draws the dust from the driveway into a collection system beside the office.

Speaking of the driveway, I took a peek (NOT a "peak" - sheesh) through the open door.

The town of Lyleton has the usual closed stores along the main street. This looks like it was a garage.

Note the dead car behind it.

Lyleton was the terminus of the CP Lyleton subdivision. Lyleton, Coulter and Cameron lost their rail service in 1976 due to a washout between Dalny and Coulter.

So that was Lyleton.

Cameron

I admit, I had a hard time finding this one. Apparently I had the wrong GPS coordinates. I had to call my father-in-law to look it up on my Manitoba grain elevator map. Once I drew close to the coordinates he gave me, I spotted it and it was all good.

It's hard to believe there was ever a town here. Maybe there wasn't... I've only seen references to "Cameron Siding". The nearest house was barely in sight. I drove up a road leading to one of the many oil wells around.

It was great to see another Lake of the Woods elevator.

It doesn't seem to be in use. I didn't get close to it because I didn't want to tromp across someone's field.

Check out the other name on the elevator!

Five Roses Flour was a brand of the Lake of the Woods company, much like Royal Household was an Ogilvie brand and Purity was a Western Canada Flour Mills brand.

You can see the shadows were getting long, so it was time to get to the final town of the night.

Melita

It was getting pretty close to dark by the time I arrived in Melita. The town was bustling with Bakken oil business and I had a hard time finding a place to stay. I called around and ended up at a brand-new hotel in town, the Western Star All-Suites. It was more hotel than I wanted. When I was packing the car, I was prepared to sleep in my car, but after a long day's photography in the heat, I was feeling pretty gross and sweaty and desperately wanted to shower, so I coughed up the cash and booked a room.

The above photo shows the two elevators in Melita. The nearest is an ex-Manitoba Pool elevator and the farthest is ex-UGG. Both closed on July 31 2000, 5 days after the concrete Elva elevator opened. They were owned by Tilbury Farm and Trucking in 2008 and presumably still are. The UGG elevator got a new roof in February 2005. Wayne Tilbury was quoted in an article on the spring 2011 flood and the Melita motel was submerged. It is still out of service.

Here's a couple of views of the ex-Manitoba Pool elevator.

You can see the shadows were getting long.

Now the ex UGG elevator. This photo was actually taken on the 9th so it is better lit than my other photos in town.

Note the plane buzzing around the elevator. There was some kind of summer fair going on and this crop duster was flying around at an alarmingly low altitude. The plane was flying lower than the tops of the elevators, a bit too low in town if you ask me!

Melita has a caboose in town, oddly ex-CN 79256. I say "oddly" because CN never went through Melita.. just the CP Estevan subdivision, as it still does.

Melita also has a giant banana. Yes, you read that right.

Apparently this was installed in 2010 to represent Melita's location in the so-called Banana Belt of Manitoba, the southern "warm" section.

I hit the sack shortly before midnight, and I was just about asleep when a train rolled by. I took this photo of the oil train out of my hotel window before going back to bed.

In part 6... Medora, Napinka, Tilston and beyond. It's hard to believe the 5 posts to date were from just one (long) day.