I love industrial architecture, it’s a cacophony of shape, form, color, form, function, and when operational sounds and smells. Truly modern marvels. On a recent road trip, while stopping to grab a burrito bowl I at Chipotle, I serendipitously stumbled upon the beautiful Coast Trading Company Storage grain elevator facility in Spokane, Washington.

This modernist structure also highlights another interesting feature of industrial architecture, it’s often built at massive scale. It is up to 120 feet tall and the largest silo has a diameter of 51 feet. The grain elevator and surrounding warehouse were initially built between 1921-1922, and additional elevators added in 1947 and 1959. During it’s life as a grain terminal it was owned by Boyd-Conlee Co., a grain seed and feed company. In 1960 by Coast Trading Co., the company’s name is still visible on the faded sign that still adorns the top of the facility. In 1984 the structure was sold to Continental Grain in Coast Tradings bankruptcy sale. In 2004 local investors purchased the granary with hopes to repurpose the now defunct building.

Though it has long ago stopped functioning as intended purpose, it remains an icon and a visual marker. Hopefully it can be preserved and reused in some way. It’s pretty impressive to look at. Here’s a gallery of some shots of it.

Source: Granary north of downtown is sold, By Kim Crompton; Spokane Journal.