WHEATLAND — Thursday morning saw the end of Wheatland’s old grain elevator on Eighth Street as it was pushed and pulled down with heavy equipment and tow cables.
“I hate to see anything old get torn down, but it was in bad shape,” Mayor Joe Fabian said Thursday.
Russell McClain, who owns the property where the elevator once stood, said he had it torn down because it would have been too expensive to fix and maintain it. He said the structure was rotting away.
“They quit using the elevator years ago,” McClain said. “It was in such poor shape on the outside that rain was getting into the grain on the inside. It wasn’t justifiable money wise to fix it.”
McClain plans to leave the rest of the buildings on the property standing, as well as construct a new building once the elevator site is leveled. He said the new building will house UPS, which has outgrown its current Wheatland building. He said UPS will rent his building for a freight swap where the company can park its trucks. McClain explained UPS brings packages from Cheyenne to its building in Wheatland, where the packages are sorted into three trucks for local delivery.