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Looking SE where Ogden Avenue, U.S. Route 34, crosses the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway (The 'J') in Aurora, Illinois. This entire photo is unrecognizable today. All but the NE corner is built up with homes, the elevator is gone, U.S. 34 has been 4-lanes for a number of years, and in 2013 a viaduct was built to carry Ogden Avenue over the tracks.
The original grain elevator at this location, called Frontenac, was constructed and operated by Samuel Shimp (Naperville Heritage Society archives). Later, the elevator was owned by Charles Barr in the early 1900s. In 1911 the Plainfield Grain Company was formed as a cooperative and purchased this location. The Frontenac elevator was said to have a storage capacity of 25,000 bushels (The Grain Dealers Journal, 1911). Many of the early wood-frame elevators burned, so it's unlikely this is the original Shimp elevator. In 1915, "The Farmers' Review" reported that Plainfield Grain was the largest grain cooperative in the United States.
By the late-1990s, the property was taken over by residential real estate development.