Harvestore Silos

SHALER · Mar 4, 2016

Anybody know when these first started to dot the countryside? I remember seeing them in the early 70?s but have no clue about how old they were at the time. Guessing the first ones have been around close to 60 years now? Also, would ASSUME the ?first ones? would have been put in to service near AO Smith headquarters or manufacturing plant. Where would that have been?

Bob · Mar 4, 2016

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History

Glen SW Wi · Mar 4, 2016

A O Smith is a Milwaukee, Wi company. I remember seeing their silos in the fifties.

hd6gtom · Mar 4, 2016

I don't know when they first started, I seen them in Germany in 1971.

Glen SW Wi · Mar 4, 2016

A O Smith also used to make the frames for American Motors cars. As a kid I used to see truckloads of frames being trucked to Kenosha, WI Where the Nash was built.

Dick2 · Mar 4, 2016

I remember hearing them called "Blue Thermos Bottles" in the mid-60's.

RogerinIowa · Mar 4, 2016

Blue money trees....

Kent Petersen · Mar 4, 2016

When i was a young boy we lived just south of Salem Wi our neighbor put up a new Harvest Store silo. story was it was the 2nd one sold was a lot of fun watching them do it as the crew was learning as they went i think that was 1949 or 1950 at the latest

rrlund · Mar 4, 2016

Ah,the status symbol of the 70's. The first ones I remember around here would have been in the early 60's.

oldtanker · Mar 4, 2016

(quoted from post at 15:09:13 03/04/16) I remember hearing them called "Blue Thermos Bottles" in the mid-60's.

Here they were known a "Blue Tomb Stones". They really started to sell around here in the late 70's. The 80's farm crises pretty much killed off anyone with a big debt load between that and the much higher interest rates. SO a lot of the guys that put them in back then failed.

Rick

farmerwithmutt · Mar 4, 2016

I heard that the design came from beer vats. The Amish still use them place doors and chutes on them and good to go

cool hand · Mar 4, 2016

My brother used to be in the pallet business. He had a contract with A O Smith to make wooden water heater carton bases for them.

Eagle Beagle · Mar 4, 2016

The father-in-law called them the blue mortgage.

JD Seller · Mar 4, 2016

My Grand Father put up the first one we have in 1963. Then I put a second "used/reconditioned" one in 1986. IF you know how to use them correctly they will make GREAT feed. If you think you can abuse them like many livestock guys and get good feed/service out of them your wrong. They are like any other up right silo these days in that they are too slow for a very large feeding operation.

wisbaker · Mar 4, 2016

A.O Smith also used to make Oldsmobiles, just the station wagons though.

brutus49DC · Mar 4, 2016

A friend of mine always called them the "Tombstone of the American Farmer". His dad (and many others) had the option of putting up a harvestore or buying another quarter of land. His dad bought the land and survived the 80's. Many farmers that bought silo's were not as fortunate. A guy near here built one and soon got taken to court by AO Smith for not making payments. He testified to the judge that the silo salesman told him it would pay for itself! The hutterites bought some used ones for coal storage. Remember the term re-constituted feed? They told people that you could put poor quality feed in and it would come out high quality. Kind of like trying to make ice cream out of horse crap!

Frank 41 · Mar 4, 2016

My dad and uncle put a 10,000 bu one up around 1959 in IA for shelled corn. Here in IL there were usually 2. One larger for haylage or corn silage and a shorter one for selled corn.

Bill in IL · Mar 4, 2016

So the basic AO smith history shows 1949 so does anyone know when they quit with the blue roof and went to the white roof?

They were great silos if you maintained them but maintaining the unloader was expensive. The one 20x80 that we used daily with haylage had to be rebuilt yearly with new chains but it got filled with probably 120 feet worth of feed in a year. If they were used with corn silage they could go 4-5 years before rebuild but those usually didn't get filled completely each year.

gab · Mar 4, 2016

Called blue coffins around here in the 80s.

JMS/.MN · Mar 4, 2016

My 50 foot corn unit went up in "76, the 70 foot haylage unit went up in "77- later upped to 90 feet. Both were white top. Cousin put his up earlier in the 70s- they were white top as well. Haylage chains always lasted about 3-4 years. Salesman never claimed you could put garbage in and get good feed out- only that what went in was preserved better. I liked the idea of feed always being fermented before being fed- in an upright, that doesn"t happen, with multiple cuttings per year. And No hassle of lifting unloaders at each cutting, or feeding by hand during that time. My only complaint was with the corn unit unloader, until I switched the auger unloader to another Goliath chain unloader. Should have put in a Power Sweep at the start.

01gentdc · Mar 4, 2016

there is a new 50 footer along ind hiway 111 and the ohio river in 1962

DR. EVIL · Mar 4, 2016

BTO I worked for many years in High school & college put the first two up in the early 1960's, put two bigger white tops up a couple years later. Big ones were 20x60's IIRC. I remember one night after chopping hay all day the Boss sent me up the one to close the hatch and then open the hatch on the one next to it, five feet away. No catwalk between them, considered jumping, but climbed down, then back up. There is a catwalk between them now, plus two more silos.

The SLURRYSTOR manure pits were the real status symbol in our neighborhood. Three of them in five miles on one road. All three farmers went bankrupt. All three sat empty for decades and are now gone.

sammydwm · Mar 5, 2016

I remember back in about 70 the harvestore guy was trying to sell dad one. Left a cool movie projector with the movies in little cartridges. Was fascinated by all the modern stuff being 4 or 5. We had 2 old silos one poured and one rock. No unloaders
....
Didn't buy a blue tube but we got a nifty water jug that looked just like one

Commercial Farmer · Mar 5, 2016

OK for high moisture corn. Worthless for haylage.

Bill in IL · Mar 5, 2016

The one at my place grandpa put up in 71 as a high moisture corn unit and its a white top. There really are not many blue tops around and my best guess it was changed to white tops in the 50s maybe early 60s.

Thinking back now maybe it was 2 years for chains on the one haylage unit. I know we did not mess around with them cause it was a huge expense and pain in the bugger if you broke a chain with feed in the silo.

We had a corn unit with a Hercules unloader. If I remember correctly that one went 20 years with the original chain and it was used daily.

I have never heard good things about the larger 25 footers. There was a few around here and there but we never had one. Most had been converted to top unload. The unloaders would not hold up in those.

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