SUPERIOR — From atop the CHS grain elevator on the afternoon of Dec. 2, ice floes could be seen surrounding the Johanna G as the bulk carrier loaded up with spring wheat bound for Italy.
A light but frigid breeze licked the elevator's summit, where terminal manager Daniel Vandenhouten stood underneath a conical display of colored LED lights.
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"Once our Christmas tree goes up and the lights are on," he said, "that's a sign that it's the end of the shipping season. Everybody's trying to get their last couple vessels loaded."
Whatever the busy crew members on the Portugal-flagged ship might have made of the decoration — "I can't tell you what the people on the vessels may or may not say or think" about the tree, said Vandenhouten — it's become a seasonal landmark in the Twin Ports.
The CHS lights are generally referred to as a "tree" although they really just form the abstraction of one, with eight strings attached to a flagpole topping the elevator's head house.
It's not the highest Christmas tree in the Twin Ports measured strictly by elevation (any Duluth Heights living room is farther from the center of the Earth), but it's the farthest above the ground in a visible outdoor setting.
The head house reaches about 270 feet high, said Vandenhouten, putting the treetop 300 feet above ground level at the harbor. To put that in context: if you doubled the height of Bentleyville's tree, it still wouldn't even reach the bottom of the CHS tree.
While the CHS grain elevator tree can be seen from across a wide swath of Superior, the best view of the tree is achieved by crossing the Blatnik Bridge. That's no coincidence.
"This facility was originally built, the original part, in 1936," Vandenhouten explained. "At the time the high bridge was erected in 1961, I can only guess the employees at this facility, as part of the cooperative spirit, giving back to the community," decided to start stringing lights from the flagpole.
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When the high bridge opened in December 1961, the towering grain elevators were signal attractions in their own right. "The view from atop the bridge affords a view of several huge ships tied up for the winter, the world's largest grain elevators in Superior and the skylines of the cities," the News Tribune reported.
At that time, the facility was known as the Farmers' Union Grain Terminal Association Elevator. (The Farmers' Union later became Cenex, then CHS.) When it officially opened for business in the early 1940s, a News Tribune columnist hailed it as "the tallest concrete structure in the world." While the facility is no longer in contention for that distinction, it's been expanded laterally and now loads dozens of vessels each year.
When the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed in 1959, an ad for the facility crowed that "for the first time, ocean-going ships from the world's principal markets can penetrate more than 2,000 miles closer to one of the nation's greatest sources of premium grain ... the GTA terminal at Superior, Wisconsin."
Across the harbor, a white tree now tops the 1978 Riverland Ag elevator. The CHS tree was also white until a few years ago when the facility updated its display to feature colored LED lights.
"It's kind of fun to get to see how many other elevators, how many other companies can take part in this tradition," said Vandenhouten.
Internet searches yield occasional evidence of U.S. grain elevators being decorated for the holidays, whether with a star, a sign, a tree outline or even, in one case, a 35-foot cross. Still, despite the prevalence of grain elevators across America, such displays seem to be rare and have grown even more so over the decades.
Grain elevators are fundamentally utilitarian structures, and maintaining even a modest display like the one at CHS takes a certain amount of attention. Lights go out, and replacing them is not for the faint of heart. "Being this high off the ground, it's something that a lot of people don't enjoy as part of their daily routine," said Vandenhouten.
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The lights used to come down in exchange for an American flag that flew in warmer months, but at this point, the Christmas lights just stay up year-round.
There's no set date for the lights to be plugged in. "We always take a poll downstairs in the break room," Vandenhouten explained. This year, the lights came on when the Christmas City of the North Parade rolled through Duluth on Nov. 22.
If you're the kind of person who likes to leave your tree up into the new year, you'll find kindred spirits at CHS.
"They'll stay on, typically, through February, March, until we're kind of sick of them," said Vandenhouten about the holiday lights. "They're up here, so you might as well keep them on."
Twin Ports residents don't tend to say much about the CHS tree — but Vandenhouten knows they're paying attention, because they notice when it's gone. Last year, for example, the flagpole broke and had to be replaced, so the tree wasn't lit until the holiday season was underway. Vandenhouten started to hear about it.
"(I was) getting calls from people around the community," the terminal manager remembered, "saying, hey, don't you know how much that means to me? Are you going to put your lights up this year? We really want to see them. We miss them."
The Northland loves its traditions, and Vandenhouten plans to keep this one alive.
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"I enjoy those family traditions," he said. "This is one thing that I didn't start, I wasn't here back in the '60s, but I want to make sure this continues on for as long as I'm here."
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