This page will spotlight items in the Newsletter. Each issue of our quarterly newsletter has a
spotlight article on an organization, item, building or business. We also feature some of the early pioneers and citizens of Goodhue. Please check these spotlights periodically as they will change, but to receive more frequent spotlights, please become a member as they are published in the Membership Newsletter.
spotlight article on an organization, item, building or business. We also feature some of the early pioneers and citizens of Goodhue. Please check these spotlights periodically as they will change, but to receive more frequent spotlights, please become a member as they are published in the Membership Newsletter.
A Goodhue
Landmark
- Years ago this tall white cement silo was the identifying landmark for the town of Goodhue. It stood 50 feet tall next to the north entrance into Goodhue off highway 58. The coal tower was built by the Trimble Lumber Co.
- The tower was originally built to handle stoker coal. Within it were four bins and a leg with cups to take
- coal to the top and distribute it into each separate bin, each bin holding about 100 ton. The coal tower
- was make of concrete with a ladder on the outside to climb to the top to switch bins as they became
- filled. The bins were designed to empty at the east side about 12 feet off the ground. There were drive-
- through doors on the north and south sides so customers could drive in with their pickups, lower a
- chute, pull a slide open and load out what they wanted. They would drive onto a scale at the elevator to
- be weighed, pay the bill and be on their way home.
- The city dray line also regularly loaded coal into wagons pulled by horses or in the later years into small trucks. Problems sometimes arose in that the horses were afraid of the noise.
- The coal came in by railroad cars. It was unloaded from box cars on the west side of the tower into a pit next to the railroad tracks. A belt with cups driven by an electric motor would take the coal to the top and distribute into separate bins. Coal was shoveled off the railroad cars by scoop shovel or steel wheeled coal scoops, which held 3 times as much as a scoop shovel. It took 2 men 10 hours of steady labor to unload a box car of stoker coal. The last train to come into Goodhue was in 1965.
- The Goodhue Elevator used the coal tower for oats, but it did not pass government inspection. Also safety was an issue with the ladder and the insurance company would no longer extend coverage. Pigeons moved in and citizens were climbing the tower at night to catch them for a nice "pigeon dinner."
- The coal tower possible pre-dated the 1897 incorporation of Goodhue by as much as 10 years. Finally in 1989, without much ceremony, a crane began the task of tearing down a Goodhue landmark. Today the USDA Farm Service Agency is located on this approximate location.
