Buffalo photographer Gene Witkowskiis current exhibit at the LCo at Exchange building, entitled iThe Final Days of the Buffalo Grain Scoopers, i documents the final unloading of the grain freighter, the Kinsmen Independent on two cold days at the end of January 2003.
The Independent was unloaded for the last time at General Mills, located at the foot of Michigan Ave., using 1920is technology and laborers known as iscoopers.i
The collection of 27 fascinating photos portray the scoopers from the beginning to the end of those two days, as they unloaded the freighter, using shovels, brooms and a pulley system to pass the grain onto a conveyor belt that would take it to the storage elevators. Except for the clothing they are wearing and the fact that the photos are in color, the photos could have been taken at any time from the mid 1800is on. In a world where rapid technological changes occur at dizzying rates, the fact that these workers toiled with something as simple as a shovel to empty a freighter seems astounding!
Gene happened upon this photographic story in part because of serendipity. He had spent years photographing and exploring the grain mills along the canals in Buffalo. One day he noticed that the water level where he happened to be standing was lower than in other areas. He realized that he was actually standing on the remains of an old, partially submerged 200+ foot freighter that was so covered with soil and vegetation that it seemed to be land!
His fascination with the mills and the landscape of the waterfront grew. In Nov 2001, he joined the Lower Lakes Marine Historical Society. A spur of the moment visit to the LLMHS office to renew his membership in Nov 2003, led to the information of the Kinsmenis arrival. It had been tied up since Sept of that year, awaiting the last unloading using the iscoopersi and their primitive technology. Modern grain freighters had all been equipped with a boom crane and conveyor belts which rendered them self unloading with a minimum of labor, thus ending a 150 year era of the grain iscoopers.”
Along with the unloading photos, there are a few portraits of the iscoopers.i Tom Suto, one of the last two gang bosses, is the subject of one and happened to be at the exhibit on the day that I attended. He was proudly wearing his green Grain Scoopers Union Local 109 iScoopersi hat. He mentioned that the hat was green because almost every scooper over the years was of Irish descent.
iThe Final Days of the Buffalo Grain Scoopersi exhibit will run through March i06. The LCo Building is open to the public Mon-Fri during business hours.
Here’s a slideshow of just a few of the photographs on exhibit.
Other work by Gene Witkowski is currently on exhibit at Buffalo Big Print.
Gene Witkowski
genewit@localnet.com
Lower Lakes Marine Historical Society
716.849.0914
LCo at Exchange
716.856.8400
Buffalo Big Print
78 Allen St @ Virginia Pl
716.884.1777