The Zip Feed Tower was a

grain elevator A grain elevator is a facility designed to stockpile or store grain. In the grain trade, the term "grain elevator" also describes a tower containing a bucket elevator or a pneumatic conveyor, which scoops up grain from a lower level and deposits ...

and

feed mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separated ...

Sioux Falls, South Dakota Sioux Falls () is the most populous city in the U.S. state of South Dakota and the 130th-most populous city in the United States. It is the county seat of Minnehaha County and also extends into Lincoln County to the south, which continues up ...

. At it was the tallest occupiable structure in

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

from its construction in 1956–57 until its demolition in December 2005. The mill closed in 2000 and in 2005 was scheduled for demolition to make way for office and retail space.

Attempted demolition

On December 3, 2005, workers unsuccessfully attempted to implode the building. The concrete tower fell into its own

basement A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...

, leaning to one side but still standing. Demolition crews had attempted to drop the structure by cutting reinforcing bars throughout the structure, then placing explosive charges in a ring around the base and up between the vertical silos. However, the integrity of the structure was such that, as the base was sheared off, the main structure dropped straight down, crashing through the damaged base and into the basement. A review of the demolition project proved that the crew had seriously underestimated the amount of cutting explosive required to "break" the structure's vertical integrity. Over the next two weeks, a crane and

wrecking ball A wrecking ball is a heavy steel ball, usually hung from a crane, that is used for demolishing large buildings. It was most commonly in use during the 1950s and 1960s. Several wrecking companies claim to have invented the wrecking ball. An e ...

were used to complete the demolition.Siouxfalls.org: Tip the Zip
Accessed August 4, 2006. The tallest building in Sioux Falls today is the 11-story CenturyLink Tower.

References

{{coord, 43, 33, 5.52, N, 96, 43, 22.61, W, type:landmark_region:US, display=t Infrastructure completed in 1957 Buildings and structures in Sioux Falls, South Dakota Towers in South Dakota Demolished buildings and structures in South Dakota Grain elevators in the United States Agricultural buildings and structures in South Dakota Buildings and structures demolished in 2005