The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Ship of the Month No. 225 CHEYENNE 6. It has given us considerable sadness du r i n g the summer and autumn of 1995 to w atch the disappearance, u n d e r the w r e c k i n g balls and hammers of Green s p o o n Bros. Ltd. of the mill i n g plant and concrete elevator silos of V i c t o r y Soya Mills, at the foot of P a rliament Street on the Toronto waterfront. The last active grain e l e vating o p e r a t i o n on Toronto Bay (although not the last e l e vator still standing), the V i c t o r y Mills plant has stood vacant for a number of years since the abandonment of the o p e ration by Central Soya, w h i c h had acquired Vict o r y but wi s h e d to c oncentrate its soya bean mill i n g at H a m i l ton. The City of Toronto had threatened to expropriate the premises for its ill- c o n c e i v e d and n e v e r - c o n s t r u c t e d A t a r a t i r i h o u s i n g project but Vict o r y held out against the loss of its plant, only to close down on its own accord later. Central Soya c o n t r a c t e d with G r e e n s p o o n in the spring of 1995 for the d e m o l i t i o n of the plant and elevator. We have been rep o r t i n g the d i s a p p e a r a n c e of the V i c t o r y elevator in the last few issu es of "Scanner" as the demo l i t i o n has progressed. What time could be better, then, than our last issue of 1995, to feature the story of the freighter w hich brought the v ery first cargo of soya beans to the Vict o r y Mills half a cent u r y ago? She was the CHEYENNE, and we venture to say that even fewer observers will r e m ember her today than recall the b u i lding of the elevator duri ng the years of World War Two. They might, however, remember her more easily by her ver y last name, SORELDOC, u n d e r which she was s c r a p ped du r i n g 1966. Our story begi ns during the early part of the year 1929, when the North A m e r i c a n economy still was strong en o u g h to encourage investment, but was teet ering on the brink of the greatest depr e s s i o n the continent has known. The firm of E. S. Crosby and Company Inc. was, at that time, a grain dealer and elev ator operator at Buffalo, that city having b e e n for many years a m a jor grain r e c e i v i n g and trans-s h i p m e n t centre. The company o p e r a t e d the Frontier (W a s h b u r n - C r o s b y ) Elevator, w h i c h was located on the old Buffalo City Ship Canal, just to the north of the old M i c h i g a n Avenue bridge. This elevator later beca me part of the facilities of General Mills Inc. The C r o s b y interests r e a l i z e d that e a s t w a r d - b o u n d grain had to be u n l oaded from upper lake steamers at Buffalo and Port Colborne and then reloa d e d into ca n a l - s i z e d f r eighters for the rest of the journey down to M o n t r e a l and other St. Lawrence River ports. They came to the c o n c l u s i o n that c o n s i d e r able profit might be made by operating their own c a nallers in this trade, although they might have thought d i f f e r e n t l y had they known what lay in store for the grain trade during the Great D e p r e s s i o n which began in the autu mn of 1929. In any event, E. S. Crosby, of Kenmore (a Buffalo suburb), New York, t oge ther wit h a t t o r n e y s - a t - l a w A. M. Sap e r s t o n and 0. G. Olds of Buffalo, b a r rister G. H. Pettit, of Welland, and T. J. Darby, of Humberstone, Ontario, joined forces at the b e g i n n i n g of 1929 to form a C a n a d i a n company which could handle these grain shipments through the old W e l l a n d and St. Lawrence canals. The resu lt was the incorporation, under the Dominion Companies Act, of St. Lawrence Steamships Ltd., w i t h a u t h o r i z e d capital of $ 2 5 0 , 000. The new firm had its offices at Welland, Ontario, and its first officers were E. S. C r o s by, president and general manager; Thomas H. Hanrahan, of Buffalo, vicepresident; Ernest S. Crosby, of B u f f a l o , t r e a s u r e r ; A. M. Saperston, B u f f a lo, secretary, and G. W. Darby, of Welland, assistant secretary. St. Lawrence Steamships Ltd., i m m e d i a t e l y placed orders in Great Britain with Barclay, Curie and C o m p a n y Ltd., of Whiteinch, Glasgow, Scotland, for the c o n s t r u c t i o n of two c a n a l - s i z e d steamers, which were built as the yard's Hull s 631 and 632, and were launched in the spring of 1929. They were c h r i s