Tenney Continues To Take It On The Chin Even After Unincorporating
A few years back, I wrote an entry about Tenney, the smallest incorporated town in Minnesota in the west-central part of the state near the North Dakota border with a population of 4 at the time, disbanding as a town when the last remaining residents decided to leave. In the last couple of years, they even removed the sign for Tenney on Minnesota State Highway 55. But even with zero remaining residents, Tenney at least maintained its marquee feature, the massive Wheaton-Dumont Co-op Elevator along the highway. It was a huge complex, visible from several miles away amidst the flat landscape, with as many as 10 large bins for grain storage, adjacent to a railway with trains speeding by at 50 miles per hour. Or at least until last month....
From afar, I could tell something wasn't right as I approached the structure from the south. The closer I got it was more visible that some significant storm damage had tore up several of the grain storage bins. Sure enough, a June storm smashed the majority of the grain bins, leaving the elevator structure about half the size it had been. Driving into the "town" was even more apocalyptic than usual as in addition to the few remaining abandoned houses in town, shards of metal from the destroyed grain bins had been gathered and piled up in what used to be the center of town. It would be a great setting for a horror movie.
Despite Tenney no longer being a town, the stated intention is to rebuild the Wheaton-Dumont Co-op Elevator. We'll see if it happens as planned but it's a prime location and I'd be surprised if they moved it or just dismantled it, and thus leaving no evidence of what used to be the town of Tenney. Most striking about Tenney is that it continues to seem predictive of the future of several small western Minnesota towns in the decades to come. The population in the area is in freefall and plenty of places on the map that I visit every year when I go to the region seem very unlikely to outlast me.
From afar, I could tell something wasn't right as I approached the structure from the south. The closer I got it was more visible that some significant storm damage had tore up several of the grain storage bins. Sure enough, a June storm smashed the majority of the grain bins, leaving the elevator structure about half the size it had been. Driving into the "town" was even more apocalyptic than usual as in addition to the few remaining abandoned houses in town, shards of metal from the destroyed grain bins had been gathered and piled up in what used to be the center of town. It would be a great setting for a horror movie.
Despite Tenney no longer being a town, the stated intention is to rebuild the Wheaton-Dumont Co-op Elevator. We'll see if it happens as planned but it's a prime location and I'd be surprised if they moved it or just dismantled it, and thus leaving no evidence of what used to be the town of Tenney. Most striking about Tenney is that it continues to seem predictive of the future of several small western Minnesota towns in the decades to come. The population in the area is in freefall and plenty of places on the map that I visit every year when I go to the region seem very unlikely to outlast me.
posted by Mark at 9:17 AM
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