Label
(from 2014.Old Walks and New)
William Dickerson, American (Kansas), 1904-1972
Wheat Elevator, 1936-37, lithograph
Dickerson frequently depicted Kansas’ agricultural industry, such as this image of a wheat elevator, set most likely in Wichita, the artist’s hometown. The print was created while Dickerson worked for the Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project in 1936-1937. By this time, the worst of the Dust Bowl was over and wheat production was up. Here a load of wheat is being delivered, as the sky darkens and the trees blow. As one scholar speculated, is the “stormy weather bringing rain and relief, or does it promise one of the dust storms that still roamed parts of Kansas in 1937?”Label
(from 2023.Art and Books)
Early Grain Elevators, Kansas
Before cellular towers or radio towers, before the top-heavy water towers with town names emblazoned - Troy, Chanute, Leonardville - these modest wooden towers sprouted wherever rail lines stretched across the state, one very 6-10 miles, the tallest structure on the horizon, saying "Hey, look. We farmers harvest wheat and corn. Lots of it." Horse-drawn wagons shuttled grain, and a belt with buckets clattered up the central shaft, and spillage was tramped under hooves, and fat pigeons clapped from the eaves to claim it, and dust billowed from a long chute when it emptied into the halted train. Grain dust hung in the air, hung in the bins, too - so flammable that sometimes whole elevators would explode, sparked by a single jammed wheel on a conveyor belt. What a blaze then, smoke visible from thirty miles. A beacon on the horizon - of something lost, of something soon to be replaced.
- Tim Bascom