Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1901 — Busiest Place in Jasper County. [ARTICLE]

Busiest Place in Jasper County.

The busiest place for jts size in Jasper county these days and for all past time, is the 30 by nO foot space occupied by the new Babcock & Hopkins elevator, near the depot. From 40 to 46 men work there every day, and excepting two or three who are kept on the jump shoving lumber out of cars, and two or three more who, with the help of a horse and pulleys, are hoisting the said lumber to where it is wanted, all these men are employed on the walls of the building, Besides the four outside walls there are two inside walls lengthwise and five cross-wise, which divide the entire building into bins about 10 All these outside and inside walls are carried up at the same time, and all are , built of 2 by 6 lumber, nailed down by 20 penny spikes. Nearly the entire force of men are employed in sawing off the ends and nailing down the planks. Others shove the lumber to them and one man has no other work than to see that the walls are kept plumb' The men work on movable platforms which fill the entire spaces of the future grain bins and which are raised as fast as the walls are built upward. Short ends of the 2by 6 planks are left projecting into the bins to hold tnese platforms, and it is one man’s job to saw off these ends after the platforms are raised another notch. AU these outside and inside walls together would measure in length about 550 feet. The walls go up at the rate of 5 to 6 feet, every day. Mr. Sloan, of Chicago, an elevator building expert is the superintendent of the work. The building will be 90 feet to the * highest point, when completed, and Mr. Sloan says it willsettle fully a foot after completion. This settling will not be in the foundations, but in the wooden walls of the building by the compression of the lumber under the great weight of the building and its contents.