Historic Grain Elevator Expansion Kicks Off Friday

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Things are looking up for the region's only grain elevator. On Friday at 10:30 a.m., a groundbreaking is scheduled at the elevator site at the South Carolina Farm Bureau, 1306 Whitehall Road. The multi-million-dollar expansion will almost double the grain storage capacity and add new offices and warehouse space at the facility. 

The only grain elevator in a 100-mile radius, the elevator has served as a valuable resource to farmers in the area for decades.

In 1950, with the county becoming one of the state's leading grain-producing counties, a community project, the Anderson Elevator and Feed Co., was undertaken to build a grain elevator. In early March of that year, Calhoun McLees and members of the project board launched a drive to raise $25,000 to expand the grain elevator to 200.000-bushel capacity from the original plan for a 150,000-bushel structure. Total cost ranged up to $150.000.

At the time, McLees said the drive would be launched immediately because "prospects are that the 1950 grain crop in Anderson and neighboring counties will be exceptionally large" and it was hoped the new elevator would be ready to provide storage for much of the crop.

County Agent J.H. Hopkins estimated between 83,000 and 85,000 acres had been sowed in grain, including 43,000 acres in oats, 26,000 in wheat and 16.000 in barley. Grain elevator organizers had a contract with the Commodity Credit Corporation for storage of federal government loan grain. 

The structure was built at its present site on Whitehall Road near the Blue Ridge Railroad crossing.

South Carolina Farm Bureau is a grassroots, non-profit organization that celebrates and supports family farmers, locally grown food and rural lands through legislative advocacy, education and community outreach. The organization, founded in 1944, serves nearly 90,000 member families in 47 chapters. For more information, please visitwww.scfb.org/landtrust.

Early photo of Anderson grain elevator, courtesy Anderson County Museum, photo credit Lewis D. Moorhead.