Friday, January 13, 2006

A Mystery Solved!

My dad had just gotten a whole set of Alberta Wheat Pool Agents Daily Letter Forms from a friend of ours. These were used to keep track on how much grain was in the elevator per day, and I think to also keep track on how much grain was in the other elevators in town. Probably to keep the records straight in case of error or fire. She had found them during a building move, and brought them to us. The pads I was looking at ranged from 1938-1939, and another dated from 1943. I was surprised to find out that my home town of Delia had THREE Pioneer elevators, and two Alberta Pools, as well as a National, UGG and Alberta Pacific elevators, according to the Daily Letter from 1938. You can see the names of the elevators on the left side of the sheet.


Here's a picture of the page.

The next one from 1943 had the number of elevators I had known about... Delia had an Alberta Wheat Pool, Alberta Pacific, 2 Pioneer, National and UGG elevator.


Here is the one from 1943.

I checked into my own records, and also double checked the Delia History book for clarification... and my records had not shown that there was another Pioneer elevator, but it was torn down in 1940. It was originally owned by Wolfe Grain Co, and was bought by Pioneer in 1932. The other pool elevator which is on the list (Pool #1) was built in 1929, and was built after the first, which was built in 1927. These two were moved together in the 1940's. I think it was the way the article in the book was written that made me confused.

It's truly amazing what some old, mouse munched documents can start or end a mystery that you never even known you had.