Memories of the Gordon Elevator

This essay was written by Kent Morrison about his memories and experiences at the Gordon elevator in Manitoba.

The Gordon elevator was built in 1928. It caused a lot of activity around Gordon, Manitoba. I remember playing baseball that summer. The baseball diamond was just across the railroad in the field presently owned by Bill Galbraith. There are lots of people and spectators at our Sunday games as the people working on the elevator lived in trailers at the site.

I remember one incident very well although I do not remember the year. Charlie Pulfer from Balmoral was the elevator man at the time. He had a lot of trouble starting the diesel engine and quite often he would come to get me to start it for him. The motor was a one-cylinder diesel and to start it you had to turn the fly wheel around to the compression stroke, pour a little gas in the carburetor, flip the magneto and then it would fire. This one morning in the winter he phoned for me. I hitched the team of horses to the sleigh and drove over.

I fired up the motor and it backfired just as Charlie was putting the gas in it. That set the jug of gas on fire. Charlie threw it on the floor, it shattered, then the whole engine room was on fire. As Charlie ran through it to get out the door his clothes caught fire. I went out the window and ran around to the side of the building where Charlie was rolling in the snow. I saw he was going to be all right and ran back into the elevator, grabbed up two fire extinguishers, opened up the office door a little and emptied both of them inside. By this time Charlie had the fire on his clothes put out so I jumped in the sleigh box and headed for home to get a couple of axes. I thought we’d have to cut the walk to the elevator out to try and save the elevator from the fire. I don’t think the people in the team knew how fast they could run until that day. When I got back to the elevator and opened the door to the office we saw that the fire extinguishers had smothered out the fire. The office being lined with sheets of aluminum and painted saved the building. With cleaning and a fresh coat of paint the elevator was back to business as usual.

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