Bio: Powell, Curtiss, Wis. (Jumped From Leaning Silo - 1929)

Contact: Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Powell, French

----Source: Neillsville Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI.) September 19, 1929

Powell, Curtiss (Jumped From Leaning Silo - September 1929)

Curtiss Powell whose adventure in descending from the top of a silo at the Bob French farm was chronicled in last week’s Press, states that there was a whole lot more to his adventure than was reported.  He informs The Press that the silo had got out of plumb and started to lean over when it was pretty well filled up. The other men who had worked inside became alarmed and had got down.  Mr. Powell continued to work until the silo sagged over so that the guy wires on one side snapped and the men who worked on the outside yelled frantically to Mr. Powell to get out, as the silo was about to fall.  The situation looked desperate and Mr. Powell seeing the rope which had been hanging through the upper door way by the blower pipe and thinking it was fastened he decided to use it as the only safe way out.  He said he had no time to examine the fastening of the rope and would have been obliged to jump anyway, as the men told him there was not time to lose.  The situation looked so critical that the tractor was hitched to the silo filler, pulling it away from the leaning silo and dragging the blower down the side, not stopping to uncouple it.  By strenuous efforts the crew got long heavy poles to prop up the silo, which still stood like the "Leaning Tower of Pisa", and apparently it will stand all right through the winter.  Mr. Powell says he was no more excited than the rest of the crew, and even after his fall helped the men cut and get up the big props to save the silo.

Had it fallen as expected not only would the silo have been destroyed, but Mr. French’s entire silage crop would have been lost; the silo filler would have been crushed and if Mr. Powell had not made his jump, he might have been buried in the ruins.