No one foresaw that, following the completion of the C.P.R. line from Lake Superior to Winnipeg in 1882, Port Arthur and Fort William would soon be overwhelmed by an annual avalanche of western grain. The first trickle of wheat arriving the next year had to be stored in hastily built sheds along the Kaministikwia and then wheelbarrowed and dumped into a small waiting ship. By 1883 the C.P.R. had built the first elevator to ship grain out of Thunder Bay at Port Arthur. With a capacity of 350,000 bushels, this came to be known as King's elevator or the Horn, so named for the men who later operated it as a "hospital" for the cleaning and drying of damaged grain. Its inadequate size led the C.P.R. to build a one million bushel capacity Elevator "A" on the Kaministikwia for the 1885 season. As the 1887 bumper crop began flowing into Thunder Bay, the C.P.R. hurriedly built an 800,000 bushel capacity store house, Elevator "B", that winter, the carpenters barely keeping ahead of the stevedores pushing wheelbarrows of grain 80 to 120 feet up improvised ramps. With the construction of C.P.R. Elevators "C", "D", and "E" during the next fifteen years, Fort William virtually dominated the grain trade until the Canadian Northern Railway built its first terminal elevator on Port Arthur's waterfront. In this photograph the structure is seen under construction in 1901.
With the rapid proliferation of elevators during the early twentieth century, engineering firms specializing in elevator construction became important employers of labour. The first union apart from the railway brotherhoods and associations was that of construction workers at Elevators "D" and "E". Pioneer labour leader Harry Bryan organized them into the International Bridge and Structural Iron Workers in 1903.
Most elevators are named for their owners or builders. Where the company owns more than one elevator, they are usually designated by numbers or letters.
