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The old Virgelle Mercantile store building is headquarters for the Missouri River Canoe Company and the Virgelle Mercantile Lodging. Built in 1912, this building has weathered the harsh central Montana climate for almost 100 years.
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The old Greely grain elevator stands across the road from the Mercantile and beside the bed of the former Great Northern Railway. Local farmers from both sides of the Missouri River hauled their wheat, barley, and oats to the nearest point along the rail where various companies provided facilities like the one here. Loaded trucks pulled into the overhead doors, weighed in, dumped their load through a special screen in the floor, and weighed again... The grain elevator would lift the deposited grain up via conveyor belt, and dump it into one of several tall bins. As the bins filled, the elevator manager would procure a string of cars from the railroad to be parked along side the main line in front of the elevator. A tractor or horses would position the cars one at a time under a chute fed by the conveyor belt, which put the grain into the waiting cars. From here, Montana wheat traveled to all parts of the world.

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Virgelle Merc-Canoe Co., Inc.
7485 Virgelle Ferry Road North; Loma, Montana 59460-9704

1-406-378-3110
Toll Free: 1-800-426-2926