Tallest building ever demolished in Springfield

The 224-foot-tall Headhouse building at the former Pillsbury Mills site, which served as a grain elevator, is under active demolition this week. It is the tallest building ever demolished in Springfield.

The Headhouse was one of the first buildings built at Pillsbury. When completed in the fall of 1929 it was second in height only to the Illinois State Capitol building, which stands at 361 feet.  It became the third-tallest building in 1974 when the 352-foot-tall Forum-30 Plaza Hotel was built, which later became known as the Wyndham Springfield City Centre.

The Headhouse was the central part of the grain moving operation at the Springfield Pillsbury plant. All the wheat that came into the facility was moved vertically in the Headhouse and up to the weight tanks near the top where it was tested and graded. From there, the wheat would then be stored in the silos prior to milling.

The materials from the Headhouse demolition will nearly all be recycled. The metal will be separated on-site from the concrete. The metal will then go directly to a recycling facility. The concrete will be crushed on site and used for future construction projects in the area.

Very little of the materials from the demolition at the former Pillsbury Plant will go to the landfill. Moving Pillsbury Forward, the nonprofit overseeing the site clean up and redevelopment, estimates that total recycling at the site will exceed 95% of the bulk materials by weight, making this the largest ongoing recycling project in central Illinois. Well over 150,000 tons of material will be recycled.