Sharples: An Extremely Endangered Grain Elevator

It’s never a good thing to learn another grain elevator is on the endangered list. It is especially bad when that elevator is one of the most-photographed elevators in the entire province of Alberta. Not only is the 1923 elevator at Sharples, Alberta a registered historic resource, but the entire site is listed of the Alberta Register of Historic Places.

Sharples does not appear to have ever amounted to much as a settlement. It seems everything you can find online about it all use the same single source, the aforementioned Alberta Register of Historic Places. I’ll summarize it here and then link to the entire article at the bottom.

In 1923, the Canadian Pacific Railway built a spur line from Drumheller through to the town of Carbon. The line ran through the Knee Hills Creek Valley and was primarily used for hauling coal and grain. The Parrish and Heinbecker company built an elevator at Sharples in that same year. Later, in 1927, the Alberta Pacific Grain Company would add a second elevator. The second elevator would eventually be taken over by the Alberta Wheat Pool. When the CPR abandoned the spur line in 1982, the tracks were removed and the Wheat Pool elevator was demolished.

The remains of the storage building lie in ruins in front of the P&H grain elevator in Sharples, Alberta. October 21, 2006

I first visited the Sharples elevator in October of 2006. At that time there were remains of a building to the south of the elevator office. I believe these were the remains of the outhouse/storage mentioned in the listing on Alberta Register.

This would be the first of many visits I would make to the elevator over the next 19 years. I have visited Sharples in all seasons, all types of weather, and at all times of the day and night. Sharples was like an old friend you could always count on.

Sharples elevator and barn seen at night. January 29, 2010

It’s not just the elevator. On site you will also find a barn, which is believed to date to the same era as the elevator. It was built to refresh and house the horses which farmers used to haul wheat to the elevator. In that era, horse and wagon was the most common method of hauling grain. That is why grain companies built elevators approximately every six miles along the railway. This distance was how far a horse could reasonably pull a wagon full of grain. Sharples is unique in the province. It is the only site with an original railroad barn still on site, accompanied by a grain elevator.

In 2025 the barn is beginning to collapse.

So, why do I call this elevator “extremely” endangered? Apparently the elevator site was gifted to Alberta Trailnet for purposes of developing a recreational trail through the area. This is a great idea. The Knee Hills Creek Valley is very scenic and the road which runs through Sharples does not go the entire length of the valley, meaning large portions of the valley cannot be accessed by the public. A multi-purpose recreational trail running from Carbon to Drumheller would be a tremendous tourist draw.

Unfortunately, TrailNet does not have the mission — nor the funds — to preserve and/or restore a grain elevator. As such, my understanding is they have notified Kneehill County if someone is not found in the immediate future to take over the grain elevator, they will apply for the permits to begin demolition and cleanup of the site. This picturesque site which has been home to the P&H elevator for over one hundred years will no longer exist.

With that in mind, I put word out to friend Neil “Fotoman” Young that we were intended to visit the Sharples elevator for likely the last time. He agreed to meet us out there so we could fly our drones and document this location. You can see the adventure and get a peek inside the elevator and barn by watching our video here: