Nearly 200 silos, one grandfather’s legacy: the race to record a vanishing skyline

Nearly 200 silos, built by one man across northern Illinois more than a century ago, are now at the centre of his granddaughter’s six-year effort to keep his work from being forgotten. According to a report by KCUR, National Public Radio in Kansas City, Marianne May has spent that time identifying, photographing and mapping the concrete silos built by her grandfather, Frank May, a well-known silo builder in the region.

Silos once stood as defining features of the American Corn Belt, appearing beside red barns and open fields across states such as Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they stored silage, or fermented forage, that fed livestock through the year, and as dairy and cattle farming expanded, the tall towers, built from concrete, brick, stone or wood, became near-universal on family farms.

Marianne May has travelled across rural communities and spoken with landowners to document the surviving structures, turning what began as a personal search for her grandfather’s work into a broader record of rural agricultural history, the KCUR report said.

Many of these silos are disappearing as farming technology advances. Bunker silos, silage bags and other large-scale storage systems now serve today’s mechanised farms, and older silos have increasingly fallen into disuse, with some torn down over safety concerns, maintenance costs or changing land use.

Preservation experts say the structures represent more than old farm buildings, reflecting generations of agricultural innovation and the craftsmanship of rural builders like Frank May. By recording nearly 200 of the silos he built, his granddaughter’s project ensures that even as the physical towers vanish from the landscape, the history behind them will not be lost.

Wikimedia Commons/by TheTechnician27