Vanishing Giants

Newspaper Name: Calgary Herald
Province: Alberta
Town(s) Served: Calgary, Canmore/Banff, southern Alberta
Published: 07/22/2012
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For almost 100 years, before new technology, rail line closures and changing agriculture trends rendered them near obsolete, the iconic grain elevator stood tall on the sweeping landscapes of Alberta and the Prairie provinces. At their peak in the mid-1930s, as the story accompanying the submitted front page notes, almost 1,800 elevators used to store and ship grain by rail could be found, just in Alberta. Today, only a few dozen remain. The submitted front page, with its Sunday magazine format and vivid photography, pays tribute to these fading Prairie sentinels that represent not only Alberta’s agricultural roots but the identities of many small towns that prospered because of them.