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| Elevated living (Winter 2006) |
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This South Dakota family lovingly restores a grain elevator for a second home
By Dean Houghton
Wooden workhorses of a past era, antiquated country grain elevators are slowly disappearing from the countryside. These giants were once the focal point of the landscape for a generation of homesteaders, offering an economic and social headquarters for pioneers settling the prairie. Today’s harvest is warehoused in the cold but efficient steel of modern grain-handling setups, sentencing the old country elevator to the scrap heap. In recent years, however, a few of these wooden works of art have been reborn as museums, offices, shops, and even homes.
Curtis Wik has had his arms around such a project for the past 30 years. Or, perhaps the elevator, rich in family history, has captured, captivated, and challenged him for all that time. The result is that for six months of the year, he and his wife, Shirley, live in their striking red-and-white renovated grain elevator “summer home” on the Wik family homestead near Faulkton, S.D.
Living history
“This antique grain elevator has become so much more than just our summer home,” he says. “It has also been my hobby. And I’ve always had an interest in family history, so this elevator has given me a chance to preserve as much of that legacy as possible.” The elevator itself is a living history of the Wik experience on the plains. In 1900, the George C. Bagley Company built what was to become the Wik’s summer house on the Chicago Milwaukee Railroad siding at Millard, S.D. Uncle Nick Wik was the first to manage the facility, and Curtis Wik’s father, John, bought the Millard elevator for $200 when it fell on hard times in 1937. The family moved the structure to their farm and had it ready to store grain by the harvest of 1941.
Wik went on to become a commercial airline pilot but never left the farm far behind. In 1974, after his father and uncles had been retired for some time, Wik purchased the original homestead. “I had no idea what I was going to do with the old worn-out elevator,” he says. “I decided to work on the drive shed first since I could use that space to rebuild tractors.” Wik could only work on the elevator during summer months, staying at his aunt’s home nearby while working at the elevator.
Summer project
He decided to build a bathroom with a shower in one of the bins in order to clean up at the end of the day. “It was my first room, and from there the idea of building a summer home ballooned,” he says. Once Wik retired in 1990, he had a lot more time to devote to renovation. During winters spent at his home in Arizona, he refinished antique furniture and fashioned stained-glass windows, a self-taught skill. “I wanted to use stained glass in the restoration, but found that it was expensive,” he recalls. “So I bought a book and taught myself to do it.”
He learned well. A wagon-wheel window that he calls “Morning on the Ranch” captured a first prize at a juried art show. Six other stained-glass windows are displayed
in the restored elevator.
Stairway living
Once a maze of 14 grain storage bins, the country elevator has been converted to five floors connected by spiral staircases. The decorating style is eclectic, with equal parts history and whimsy. Wik left the crib walls and massive beams exposed to hint at the structure’s past use as a grain elevator. He also left a section of the wooden grain leg in place with a window displaying the buckets and belt that once transported grain. There is even a wall of shelled corn displayed behind a red claw-foot bathtub.<.p>
The third floor has a unique twist. It houses an authentic soda fountain that came from Jones Drug Store in Miller, S.D. Fanlights powered by a line shaft keep the area cool and add to the nostalgia. On that same level there is a girl’s bedroom, a game room, and a schoolroom complete with chalkboard, desk, U.S. flag, and picture of George Washington. “The school room is a tribute to the many Wiks who became teachers,” he says.
The entire elevator is furnished with antiques, many of which were inherited. Family heirloom photos decorate walls, shelves, and furniture. Curtis also displays boards salvaged from the cupola where some of the Wik boys carved their initials and penciled a few lines about their favorite girls. Those historic sonnets date back to 1914.
Some added touches were made just for the grandkids, including a fire pole between the second and first floors and an underground play area with an escape tunnel to the outside. The girl’s bedroom walls on the third floor feature graffiti added by family during the frequent summer family reunions.
The Wik home “shows what can be done with initiative and creativity,” says Bruce Selyem, who runs the Country Grain Elevator Historical Society (www.cgehs.org). “It is a great example of what can be done to preserve an important part of rural history.”
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