Sharples, AB

Every now and then I venture off on a photography assignment with David Forbes, a longtime friend. Our latest expedition found us at Sharples, AB, looking to bag a few shots of the ghost town's grain elevator and any other remaining buildings.

Below are a few of the resulting images...

According to the Heritage Management Information System website, Parrish & Heimbecker built a grain elevator at Sharples in 1923 on a spur line running from Acme to Drumheller. (Only Kirkpatrick remains to the east and south on this line... there's a shot of it at the end of this post.) The spur line closed in 1982 when the town's second elevator -- owned by Alberta Wheat Pool, built in 1927 by Alberta Pacific Grain Co. -- was demolished.

Visible below is the P&H elevator (30,00 bushel capacity, containing 18-21 bins), the red annex (built circa 1939-40, 26,000 bushel capacity, containing 7 bins), the office (green roof), the barn, and remnants of the bridge that supported the rail line.

Below you can also see a small white building to the right of the image... it was a combination outhouse/storage building that someone decided needed to be toppled over onto its side. Also, if you look carefully you'll see a spout hanging off the right side of the elevator... it was once connected to another annex building, built in the early '40s with a capacity of 14,000 bushels. It has since become one of this town's ghosts.

Next up is the elevator's weigh scale. A farmer's truck would be weighed on entry, dump the grain in the pit located under the grates visible below, then it was weighed again prior to exiting. Farmer's could then be paid or have their load added to a tally sheet for payment at a later date.

After being deposited in the pit, grain is "elevated" by the "leg" (an endless belt with scoops) and is then cleaned and stored in the elevator's various storage bins...

Way up there, at the top of that ladder in the shot below, is the elevator's "distributor", a device that allows the elevator operator to control whether grain is distributed to the cleaner, storage, or to awaiting train cars or farm trucks. To the left of the picture is the open shaft where the self-propelled "man lift" would ascend/descend. (I wanted in the worst way to climb these stairs and get a picture of the distributor, but better judgement prevailed. Given that's the only main part I didn't get a picture of, I may have to venture back another day and take one for the team.)

The "mixer" is a multi-purpose piece of equipment that weighs and, if necessary, mixes outgoing grain. The elevator operator selects levers that open storage bins and grain comes down those chutes. It is then weighed and the bottom of the mixer opens and dumps the grain back in to the pit, where it then makes its way back up the leg and is distributed to the appropriate hopper for loading...

One of the many control levers that open up various hoppers...

Another look from inside the scale...

Steps to the office building have seen better days...

So has the floor...

Looking out the office building toward the barn...

The crawl space under the office building. Why is it that every abandoned building has one shoe or boot? (Never two, only one.)

Inside the barn...

Binder twine...

The barn's loft...

Another overturned loo...

One last look from the Sharples townsite...

And this last shot is the elevator at Kirkpatrick, which is the only other elevator still standing on what used to be the spur line extending from Acme to Drumheller. It was constructed in 1924 by Alberta Pacific Grain Co., was then purchased by Federal Grain Ltd. in 1942, and again changed ownership in 1972, this time to Alberta Wheat Pool. In 1997 it was acquired by Len Andrew; his son, Paul, is the current owner. (We were on his land with permission.)