the early years
A spry 90 years young, Rink Benson begins the story.
Harvey Benson was one of seven farmers in 1918 to join forces in forming the Hassard Elevator Company. At
the time, the elevator’s capacity was 8,000 bushels; it’s estimated cost of construction was $7,500. With each of the
founding farmers owning large acreages of wheat, the farmers simply wanted an elevator to help hold their crop.
Harvey would go on in 1926 to buy the others out.
“I’m assuming they went broke,” Rink explains of his dad’s business partners. “Then, my dad bought the whole
thing out in order to protect his investment.”
Nestled alongside the railroad, in the elevator’s early years, the Hassard community boasted a train station,
general store and even a school.
Harvey Benson’s farmstead was tucked away across the highway from the elevator.
“The office for the elevator was actually in Grandpa’s basement,” Donnie says. “A lot of the paperwork wound
up in the attic. They bought rabbits and stuff like that and then traded them to the guy down the road for
something else. (Grandpa Harvey) dealt in a lot of things besides grain for a period of time. He was also in the
trucking business, hauled livestock and coal and fertilizer.”
During that era, wheat and corn was a mainstay for the community’s farmers. Corn was chopped by hand,
hauled from the field by wagon and fed to livestock. After binding and chopping, wheat was sent through a thrasher
and shipped out by rail to flour mills.
“You can imagine chopping up a 28-bushel
wagon full,” Rink says. “That was a standard
wagon box. How much work there was involved in
that!”
Left: In its early years, the railroad played a key role in
transporting grain from Hassard Elevator to flour mills.
Below: Today, the elevator uses hedging as a marketing
strategy, and grain storage is an integral part of that.