Sights & Scenes of Canada

Augustus Searle formed the Home Grain Company Ltd in 1914, starting out with fifteen grain elevators. The company grew to own seventy-three by 1923, all in Alberta.

That was the year in which the Onoway grain elevator was built by the same company. It also had a very similar grain elevator in Rowley, built in the very same year.

Stewart A Searle, son of Augustus, was newly graduated from Yale University when, together, they formed the Searle Grain Company Ltd in 1921. The Searles moved to consolidate their operations in 1929, merging the Saskatchewan Elevator Company, the Liberty Elevator Company, and the Home Elevator Company with the Searle Elevator Company.

This made the Searle Grain Company, with two hundred and seventy-seven elevators, the third largest non-farmer-owned company.

The Searle Grain Company amalgamated with the Federal Grain Company in 1967, with Alberta Pacific being included in the merger. The new company, Federal Grain Company Ltd, was sold to the Alberta Pool five years later, in 1972.

The Onoway elevator was purchased by a local farmer in 1993. Since then it has been family-operated, by the Onoway Feed & Seed Services. Now Onoway's sole remaining grain elevator, it also functions as a communications tower. The services it provides include 'high-speed internet' for the local area.

An easily-recognisable local landmark, the elevator stands as an increasingly-rare connection to the prairie's agricultural heritage. Such historic structures even today (in the 2020s) are still being demolished. As this one is in private hands it is not on the register of historic sites. Only the Sharman House of the 1920s on nearby Range Road 13 bears that privilege.

All photos by P L Kessler, taken on 9 August 2025.