Grain Storage Terminal J, Kansas

This storage silo in Hutchinson, Kansas, is more than half a mile long, and among the most massive structures in the nation. Often referred to as grain elevators, these buildings are composed of parallel rows of connected vertical storage bins, in this case nearly 250 of them, filled from the top by conveyors and ramps, connected to an elevator structure, in the middle of the building. They are used most often to store wheat, before it is shipped off to flour mills, and they can be used to regulate the market, by controlling the otherwise seasonal flow of grain. Located throughout the country, the historically largest collection was in Buffalo, New York, which held the supply coming from the Midwest through the Great lakes, at the head of the Erie Canal. Now mostly unused, Buffalo’s Silo City is said to have caused the famous modernist architect Le Corbusier to call them “the first fruits of the new age.” There is only one other as large as this one in Hutchison, at Haysville, 40 miles away.