The Colfax Sack Elevator
A local inventor creates a machine designed to eliminate the back-breaking labor of stacking grain in regional warehouses.
The story, cleaned up
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Colfax is now the home of a revolutionary sack elevator invented by Eugene Brown. Designed to replace the labor of six to eight men, the machine uses a gasoline engine to stack sacks of grain up to 24 high at a rate of 600 per hour. The device is mobile, portable on casters, and operates for just 15 cents a day in fuel costs. Local warehouse managers have expressed significant interest in the invention, which is expected to save owners significant labor costs and protect workers from the physical toll of traditional piling methods.
“It will save countless backaches and save its owners many a dollar.”
This innovation represents the rapid industrialization of agriculture in the Palouse at the turn of the century. It serves as a reminder of how labor-saving devices were often marketed as 'boons' to replace dangerous, manual drudgery in grain-heavy economies.
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