Survival City: Part II

Seventeen years ago I posted about Tom Vanderbilt's Survival City: Adventures among the Ruins of Atomic America (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002). Last week a family journey to see my great-aunt Carol in Edmore, North Dakota provided the opportunity to check on the former Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex on County Road 26, across from Nekoma. To the North, one sees the former complex; to the South, one sees the North Prairie Ag (Nekoma / Osnabrock) grain elevator. 

Combining season experienced delays this year due to weather conditions. When I arrived, teams of combiners were rapidly working the fields in advance of anticipated frost. North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring recently delivered a 'doom and gloom' outlook for the state's farmers. 

Various news agencies have reported that Bitzero acquired the Safeguard property for use as a cryptomining data center. Its adjacent property is for sale. Rusty signage warns trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again.

Image aboves: Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex, County Road 26, North Dakota; North Prairie Ag (Nekoma/Osnabrock) grain elevator, Nekoma, North Dakota, as photographed 09.30.2025 by K. Rylance.

Goblet Tanks (1917)

100 years ago, the Roger W. Hunt & Company Employees' Bulletin reported on the use of reinforced concrete in the design of water tanks along the Gulf Coast. Featuring an image of the tallest tank, located at Bay Minette, Alabama, the Bulletin drew its report from Modern Building. Measuring 80 feet from ground to tank bottom, the supporting form emulated the stem of a drinking goblet. Tested by a June 29 hurricane, the Bay Minette goblet tower quickly became an engineering marvel. Wealthy coastal property owners sought information from Leonard Henderson White (1882-1962), an engineer who developed the method for his Concrete Steel Construction Company of Birmingham, Alabama.

Some Miami patrons despaired at the goblet tank's austerity, and hired prominent architects to modify White's method with neoclassical ornamentation. August Geiger (1887-1968) developed a 100,000 gallon tank at Alton Beach and Harold Hastings Mundy (1878-1932) utilized reinforced concrete on a combined tank and observatory for the John H. Eastwood Estate.

Dothan, Alabama's Dixie Standpipe (1897) was added to the National Register this month.

Image above:  "Interesting Things in Print." Employees' Bulletin [Roger W. Hunt & Company]. 4:3 (January 1917): p. 12.

Experimental Silos

In 1909, University of Nebraska graduate Claude Harrison Hinman (1879-1967) began teaching classes for Kansas Agricultural College Farmers' Institute. Traveling along the Santa Fe Railroad and communicating from a boxcar, Hinman lectured to regional farmers as part of the institution's "dairy train."(1) He assisted Professor J. Kendall with an experimental silo comprised of staves and a thin cement wall.(2)

E.H. Webster, then director of the Kansas Experiment Station, heralded cylindrical silos over their rectangular predecessors, claiming that the latter resulted in spoilage.(3) The college promoted silo construction in various extension services.  Hinman wrote a substantial bulletin devoted to the topic and the Extension Department mailed it without charge to anyone who was a member of a farmers' institute. In addition, the college offered Hinman's expertise to any farmer willing to cover his railroad ticket and lodging. Thus, Hinman helped to erect silos in Augusta, Herington, Hiattville, Linwood, Mulvane, Tonganoxie and Wellington. These were chiefly comprised of plastered cement or concrete on metal lath, a type that had first been developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (below).(4)

During the 19-teens, Hinman moved to Colorado and established a commercial silo operation. The Hinman Silo Company had its earliest offices on Champa Street in downtown Denver. Catering to wealthier farmers, Hinman sold vitrified hollow tile and salt-glazed tile silos. He also offered barn plans. The business seems to have flourished until the Great Depression, when the Hinmans relocated to Mesa.

One of my favorite experimental silos is the Peavey-Haglin, located in metropolitan Minneapolis, Minnesota and listed on the National Register.

(1)"Now a Dairy Train." Emporia Gazette (15 October 1909).

(2)"Local Notes." The Kansas Industrialist 36:24  (23 April 1910).

(3)"Rectangular Silos Fail." The Kansas Industrialist 37:14 (7 January 1911).

(4)Prof. G.C. Wheeler. "The Concrete-Metal Silo Is Satisfactory to Kansas Farmers." Emporia Gazette (17 March 1911).

Images:  "The Perfect Silo." Western Farm Life XIX:3 (1 February 1917) and C.H. Hinman, photographer. "Plastered Cement on Metal Lath Silo in Process of construction" as it appears in H.E. Dvorachek. "Silos and Silage in Colorado." Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 200 (August 1914).

WTC: Concrete's Poster Child

As Edward D. Stone's International Trade Center and Curtis & Davis' Exhibition Center (Rivergate) neared completion, the Portland Cement Association featured the structures in its Fortune magazine advertisements. Utilizing an illustration by poster artist Bob Peak (1927-92), Portland's copywriters stressed that concrete made good "business sense."

"Concrete gives a world trade center built-in sales appeal. The buildings of New Orleans' new International Trade Center are designed to serve the buyers and sellers of merchandise from every corner of the world. Here, through the imaginative use of concrete, is expressed the very spirit and pace of modern-day trade. In the Convention-Exhibition building, the New Orleans architects used a concrete barrel shell roof to create striking beauty, as well as an interior clear span of 225 feet, sufficient to seat 17,600 people. Textured exterior concrete walls provide tasteful concrete throughout. The highly compressible qualities of New Orleans' soils were mastered by prestressed concrete piles, providing firm foundations for the light but strong reinforced concrete frame and floors designed by advanced new structural criteria. Gleaming exterior curtain wall panels of precast concrete assure visual interest."

Image above: Bob Peak, illustrator for Portland Cement Association. "Concrete Gives a World Trade..." Promotional flyer. [Published in Fortune July 1965].  Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

New Orleans Architect Daniel Garza

In October 1926, Mexican exile Daniel Garza (b. Oaxaca 1865 - † New Orleans 1926) applied for membership in the Louisiana Architects Association (LAA). His application -- endorsed by New Orleans architects William Burk, Julius Dreyfous and Leon C. Weiss -- indicated that he had obtained his education at the Liceo Fournier and the National Preparatory School, and that he was a former vice president of the Academia de Ingenieros y Arquitectos and the Associación de Ingenieros del Colegio Militar.(1)

Garza developed a new method of reinforced concrete construction that had been utilized in his landscape designs for Chapultepec Forest in Mexico City. Prior to his exile "for political troubles" he conducted experiments with the Garza System at the Colonia de "El Imparcial" outside of Mexico City [now Colonia Clavería], that were witnessed by other architects and engineers and later published -- along with a New Orleans residence he designed -- in Building Review (New Orleans, June 1922).  He patented his system in the United States on 2 August 1921.

Less than a month after applying for LAA membership, Garza died. He was buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3.

(1) Application. 7 October 1926. Folder 1, Box 33. American Institute of Architects New Orleans Chapter Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Image above: Daniel Garza. "A New System of Unit Reinforced Concrete Construction." Building Review (June 1922): pp. 11-12. Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Garza held the following U.S. patents:

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/bd/17/00/851a01842a7602/US1637935.pdf

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/4f/c1/95/dcee6df2240e32/US1386251.pdf

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library Construction

In December 1968, Library Journal featured an article about Tulane University's new Howard-Tilton Memorial Library (construction progress photographs shown above). Designed by the New Orleans firm Nolan, Norman and Nolan with consulting assistance of Harvard University Librarian Keyes D. Metcalf (1889-1983), the building was the largest new library to be reported that year. Tulane received nearly $2 million in federal grants to support the $6.2 million project.(1)

LJ reported:

"BIG AS IT IS, Tulane's Howard-Tilton Memorial Library is only about one-half of its ultimate size. Part of its construction cost represents an investment in future expansion: foundations capable of bearing another four floors atop the first floor, plus an elevator shaft which is to be unused until the building grows.

Built on a 25-foot module, the building presents a massive and simply designed exterior, with both the ground and fourth floors completely walled in glass, and the rest of the building with concrete aggregate.

The new library is across the street from the old one, and already holds some 700,000 volumes, or 75 percent of the university's total collections. It took a wooden ramp and 11,271 book truck trips to make the move across the street."

Today, visitors to the library will have noticed that its entrance has been moved to the Freret Street facade in preparation for the construction of two additional floors. Keep abreast of the progress here.

(1) "Local Affairs." The Times-Picayune (11 June 1965): p. 1; "U.S. Fund Totaling $2,039,833 Approved for Three N.O. Universities." The Times-Picayune (22  June 1965): p. 20. Building cost was $5.5 million; equipment cost was $655,000.

Images above:  B. Samuels, photographer. Pile Driving. 2 September 1966; Form Setting. 1 February 1967; Concrete Pour. 8 May 1967. Nolan, Norman and Nolan Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Unit Buildings Principle

In September 1951, Laurence G. Farrant (1921-1978), a Miami-based consulting engineer, published an article in Architectural Record pertaining to a new parking structure that he had helped to realize. Working with project engineer W.C. Harry and New Orleans architects Diboll-Kessels at the request of parking lot entrepreneur George Blaise, Farrant developed a flat-slab garage comprised of 30 independent structures with column supports hinged at the bottoms.

Influenced by the work of Swiss civil engineer Robert Maillart (1872-1940), Farrant developed the plan based on the "unit buildings" principle, which allowed overlapping cantilevers to accommodate additional automobiles. The hinged column bottoms allowed the independence of the separate building units, and also provided more space for automobiles. Ramps between levels were simply hung between unit buildings in a non-continuous placement in order to secure the unit buildings' independence. Farrant asserted that his scheme yielded considerable savings in the purchase of steel and concrete, for he was able to reduce the slab thickness over what would have been required for a single monolithic base.(1)

Click here to see more recent images of the structure.

(1) Laurence G. Farrant. "Parking Garage: Series of Unit Buildings." Architectural Record (September 1951): pp. 167-170; Laurence G. Farrant. "Unit Buildings Cut Construction Costs." Journal of the American Concrete Institute 47:5 (May 1951): pp. 669-679.

Images above:  Details, Laurence G. Farrant. Drawings for garage for Blaise, Inc., 200 North Rampart Street, New Orleans, LA. Diboll-Kessels and Associates, Architects. March 1950. Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Kahn System

In March 1906, Asa J. Biggs (†1913); a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained engineer and principal in the New Orleans firm Mackenzie, Goldstein & Biggs; wrote an article for Architectural Art and Its Allies heralding a new reinforced-concrete building technique, the Kahn system. Invented by Julius Kahn and patented 18 August 1903 (Patent No. 736,602), the system featured rolled bars with diagonal "wings" bent up at regular intervals to prevent shear cracks in horizontal beams (see diagram on envelope below). Kahn's Detroit-based Trussed Concrete Steel Company manufactured and marketed the reinforcement system, and its structural engineers supplied builders with their services.

Frank Lloyd Wright employed the Kahn system in his Imperial Hotel (1913-23) in Tokyo.(1)  In New Orleans, Bemis Brothers' Gulf Bag Company building (329 Julia Street) was erected on 660 Raymond concrete piles, and its beams and floor slabs employed the Kahn system (1905-06).  This facilitated the builder's desire to span a clear space of 44 feet that would allow heavy bales of burlap cloth to be loaded and unloaded.(2) Edmund Burke Mason was the engineer in charge of construction for Bemis Brothers Bag Company of Boston, and supervised the construction of the Julia Street facility, as well as that of Bemis plants in San Francisco and St. Louis.(3)

(1) Joseph M. Siry. "The Architecture of Earthquake Resistance: Julius Kahn's Truscan Company and Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel" Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67:1 (March 2008): pp. 78-105.

(2) Asa J. Biggs. "A Re-Inforced Concrete Factory." Architectural Art and Its Allies (March 1906), pp. 13-14.

(3)John Smith Kendall. "Edmund Burke Mason." History of New Orleans, vol. 3. 1922. p. 946.

Images above: "Gulf Bag Company Building." Architectural Art and Its Allies (March 1906), p. 13; Trussed Concrete Steel Company envelope, 1909. "Louisiana Printing Co.," Martin Shepard Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Mushroom System II

We had posted an earlier entry regarding the use of C.A.P. Turner's so-called "Mushroom System" in the construction of the New Orleans Johns-Manville Building (1914). One year earlier, architect Emile Weil (1878-1945)  was touted as employing the method for the "Most Up-to-Date Wholesale House in New Orleans," his Woodward-Wight building (344 St. Joseph Street). The construction photograph reproduced above appeared in the January 1913 issue of Architectural Art and Its Allies, a local architecture/building journal.

Image above: "The Mushroom System of Reinforced Concrete." Architectural Art and Its Allies (January 1913), p. 20.  Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Mushroom System

In September 1914, the New Orleans architectural firm of Toledano, Wogan and Bernard was completing a new skyscraper in the Central Business District, the Johns-Manville Building (441 Gravier Street/225 Magazine Street).  The building employed a recently patented flat-slab construction system that allowed for thinner slabs, broader spans, and reduced shear. Minneapolis-based engineer Claude Allen Porter (C.A.P.) Turner (1869-1955) developed the system  after years working as a railroad bridge engineer for the Soo Line.

Turner's first documented mushroom system building was the Johnson-Bovey in Minneapolis (1906; razed). Milwaukee's Hoffman building (now Marshall) was completed the following year.(1)

In New Orleans, there was considerable interest in the Turner Mushroom System. J.T. Mann & Company was Turner's southern agent, and envisioned the Johns-Manville building its prototype.  The locally-published Building Review reported to the Louisiana Chapter of the American Institute of Architects:

"The building is the highest of its kind in this city and is of the Turner Mushroom system construction. It is fireproof, has a modern sprinkling system, extensive fire extinguishing devices and automatic door shutters. The walls of the building are stuccoed, trimmed with press brick and polychromatic terra cotta, models of which were colored in the architect's office, giving a general color scheme that presents a composition of refinement and good taste. The average test of the floors have proven a loading capacity of 600 pounds to the square foot in spans averaging 20x20 feet with a deflection of not more and in some cases much less than 1-8 of an inch."

(1) In 2002, the American Society of Civil Engineers declared it a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

(2) "A New Turner Mushroom System Building." Building Review (19 September 1914), p. 8.

Images above: C.A.P. Turner, consulting engineer. Column Top Detail, Johns-Mansville Bldg., New Orleans, LA. Blueprint.  Toledano, Wogan & Bernard Office Records; "Testing Floor Load in the New Johns-Manville Mushroom System Building." Photographic reproduction. Building Review (19 September 1914), p. 8. Both Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.