The Long Haul: Kamiah Grain Run Extends Into Eastern Montana Area

KAMIAH — The large red truck with a black cat on its radiator has become a permanent traveler from Kamiah east over the Lewis-Clark Highway to Missoula and over the continental divide into the grain fields of eastern Montana.

The truck, owned by Thomas (Cat) Rich of Kooskia and driven by Morris Skiles, is one of some 16 transport trucks carrying 900 bushels of wheat per load, making this trip from eastern Montana to Kamiah to unload at the first recent grain terminal to be established in the north central Idaho area.

Skiles stated that he made four trips a week, driving some 3,000 miles on the average, over what is now the roughest road he says that he ever has driven. He left Great Falls, Mont., Monday, to arrive at Kamiah at the grain terminal of the Stegner Grain & Seed Co. Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. He drove all night, resting about two hours, he said.

Joe Stegner, the son of Charles B. Stegner of Grangeville, owner of the business, manages the grain terminal at Kamiah that receives the hard red winter and red spring wheat. The terminal has been in operation some two and a half months, he said, and has handled more than a half million bushels of wheat to date. Six gondola type freight cars with a capacity of 200,000 pounds each are loaded daily and dispatched to terminals on the Pacific coast. Some go to an overseas terminal at Portland or Seattle and some to the mills located there.

To handle the weighing of the huge transport trucks, a 70 foot long scales has been installed at the terminal elevator. The scales can weigh up to 100,000 pounds at one time and the elevator, just built this summer, has a capacity of 265,000 bushels of grain in 36 bins.

This terminal elevator is in addition to ones the company located at Grangeville, Craigmont, Kamiah and Fenn, with a storage capacity of 2-million bushels, all designed to handle the north central Idaho grain crop.

Each freight car that is shipped has a sample of grain from it tested for the protein content. The winter wheat runs from 11 to 13.5 per cent protein, Joe Stegner stated, and the spring wheat runs from 12.5 to 16 per cent protein. All the grain is running over the standard 60 pounds per bushel weight, he stated.

Samples of the wheat are tested by the federal government testing station at Lewiston, too, to show moisture content, weight standards, split grain, and foreign materials in the samples. The market value, based on supply and demand, is based on the protein and weight factors, he said.

Looking Ahead

Such a terminal as has been established at Kamiah, using the truck transport from the eastern prairies of Montana, has been anticipated when the barge service has been established at Lewiston, Joe Stegner stated. He added that he did not think that the barge service would make any perceptible difference on the truck-train service that is being utilized here at the present time. He thinks that there will be a place for both.

The longest haul has been made out of New England, N.D., a town familiar to Charles Stegner. When he was a young man he had hauled many loads of grain to this marketing terminal. The major terminals serving the five shippers range from Great Falls east to this point.

This story was published in the Jan. 14, 1971, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.