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For 90 years, summers in Sleepy Eye followed the rhythms of the Del Monte factory on the west end of town. Sights, sounds, and smells that everyone knew ebbed and flowed through the pea and sweet corn canning seasons.
Now the lot that saw trucks and employees busily crisscrossing sits empty. Weeds grow from the cracks. The conveyors that carried ears of corn into the plant sit quiet, rusting. It's still weird to drive by, even though it's been six years since there were piles of sweet corn.
Depending which way you go through town, Del Monte is the first or last of three prominent structures that used to be something. On the other side of town sits the long empty Sleepy Eye Mill. In the middle of town is the tinned over Farmers Elevator building.
I said to Pam once "There are more things around here that used to be than are." You can add Sleepy Eye's empty buildings to thousands of barns and storefronts scattered across the Midwest. Throw in some schools and even churches, and you have a lot of things that used to be.
Del Monte shocked its employees in August 2019 when they announced that would be the final season. Not many years before that, new state-of-the-art equipment had been installed. Every indication was that it was a well-run, efficient plant.
This was one of those decisions that was made by people who had no idea what a Sleepy Eye is.
California Packing Company built the impressive brick factory in 1928. CalPack became Del Monte. RJ Reynolds used their ill begotten cigarette profits to buy the company in 1979. After that came a series of ownership changes as various investors bought and sold Del Monte and other companies as if they were properties on a Monopoly board.
Soon after the closing, Seneca bought the plant. There was brief excitement that they would start it back up. Those hopes were crushed when the new owners gutted the facility. Perhaps to eliminate potential competition.
Apparently, the rich people messed up. Canned foods became hugely profitable during the crazy COVID time. But then, rich people aren't always smart people.
A few years ago, a pet food business sort of moved in. Big banners read "Now hiring." Only, there were never more than a couple of cars. A New York investment company bought the plant for a ridiculous amount of money and leased it back to the pet food company, which then declared bankruptcy. The whole thing smelled fishy.
Recently the city's Public Utilities bought the factory, empty lot, and black water tower. They hope to find users for parts of it.
Go east, and in the middle of town is the elevator. It towers over everything, sheets of tin going up to the sky and a few broken windows. Near the top, facing Main Street, in white background are the words "FARMERS ELEVATOR CO, SLEEPY EYE." On both sides are green squiggly logos from Land O Lakes feed.
I delivered crops there in my younger farming days. The main office was there before it moved to the West Elevator. It became more difficult for larger trucks and trailers to maneuver through town, and in 2009 that facility closed.
Now it is owned by Wolfee Investments. An internet search reveals nothing about the owner of the big structure in the middle of our town. Meanwhile Sleepy Eye Farmers Elevator merged with other area elevators into Central United Cooperative.
Further east is the hulking Sleepy Eye Mill building. It was built in 1902, during the time that New Ulm, Sleepy Eye, and Springfield were the center of the international milling industry. There was great wealth flowing through town then. It was the same year that St. Mary's Church, the library, and the depot were built.
Productive wheat fields that had been prairie a few years before were the impetus for Brown County's mills. Around that time, diseases began to drive yields and quality of the wheat down. Wheat growing moved west to the dryer Dakotas. We were on our way to becoming part of the Corn Belt.
Profits shrunk with wheat yields, and in 1917 the Mill was sold to Kansas Flour Mills. In 1921, the plant was shut down. A number of things have used some of the great space in the years since. A feed company, a small creamery, even a bar came and went. Now it is storage.
The structure was built with 350,000 bricks. A 175-foot-tall chimney towers over that part of town. Considering its age and that no one has done any upkeep for decades, it is holding up well. But if you drive around it, there are places where the bricks are crumbling.
These three once vital and now empty buildings all have different stories and reasons for their emptiness. The mill and the canning factory tried to find other uses. I assume whoever owns the elevator wants to do something with it.
The problem of course is each was built for a specific purpose and were perfectly constructed for that. Outside of empty space and walls and a ceiling, they aren't particularly suited for another purpose.
At some time, they may have to be taken down, which is a very expensive thing to do. Especially in the middle of a town.
The closing of Del Monte was a blow to the workers and farmer growers, but the local economy remains strong. Farming ebbs and flows like always.
I suspect the demise of the Mill over a century ago was more devastating. By the time I came along, no one really talked about that. It was just that big building we drove around when we were cruising in high school.
I knew a lot of people who worked at Del Monte. It must be even stranger for them to drive by. I get a little sad when I remember the busyness there. At this age, I get a little sad at a lot of things.
The empty buildings, not just in Sleepy Eye, but in all these Midwestern towns and farms are ghosts now. They are memories for a while for those who worked in them, till that generation is gone. Then they are ghosts.
-- Randy Krzmarzick farms on the home place west of Sleepy Eye, where he lives with his wife, Pam.