the man lift
Sun, Oct 16th, 2005
posted by peterbillionaire

The mighty KCURBEX crew visited the Agland Inc. elevators last night. Present: Youthsonic, Gothstone, Kansascity, Cthulhu Disciple, S1l3n7b0b and peterbillionaire. The place is filthy, stinky, nasty, and covered with pigeon shit. There are plenty of stairs and ladders up to the top, with good nighttime views of downtown from the roof.

There was a “man lift”, one of those eccentric vertical conveyor belts with handholds and footholds, which the workers used to ride up to the different levels. (“Workers could have climbed ladders or ridden personnel elevators to the top but either method would have been costly and time consuming. Consequently, grain elevators used an ingenious method called a "man lift." This was an endless moving belt, stretching from basement to the top with 12-inch square platform attached every 25 feet or so. To go up or down a worker had only to step on a platform going in his direction and hold on.” From http://www.buffalo.../function/form.htm)

We spent a lot of time in the offices. They were crammed with files, unopened mail, documents, photos and blueprints. Everything was all strewn about -– not by us, that’s how we found it. It appears that nothing was removed when the place went out of business; it’s as if the office employees dropped their pencils and walked out with five minutes notice.