For nearly a century, a wooden tower has loomed over the prairie town of Andrew in western Canada, rising from the rolling landscape land like a lone sentinel. Built during the agricultural boom of the early 20th century, the grain elevator – and six others that stood nearby – once bore testament to the town’s prosperity.

Today, the main street of Andrew is quiet, even on a weekday at noon. Many of the town’s storefronts are shuttered and all that remains of the railway line is a faint imprint on the ground. The local school only has 70 students, and residents wonder how long it can remain open.

Andrew is no stranger to loss: over the years, jobs and residents have slowly dwindled. But when its last remaining grain elevator was slated for demolition, the community battled hard to win a stay of execution.

“Trying to save this thing was like praying to God,” said Dave Cuthbert, a resident. “You were never certain if your voice was being heard.”

Prairie grain elevator turned interpretive centre sits abandoned in Andrew. Photograph: Kyler Zeleny/The Guardian

Grain elevators were once an icon of Canada’s west: often painted a bright boxcar red, they stood in towns across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. As the tallest structures in the vast landscapes, they were visible from kilometers away and were known as “prairie castles” or “prairie cathedrals”.

Behind their simple wood facades was a complex series of ropes, chutes and pulleys to transport and store grain. During harvest season, trains chugged up to the elevators in town and received a shower of grain.

In the 1930s there were nearly 6,000 towers; now fewer than a thousand remain. The destruction, in many ways, mirrors the broader decline of rural communities in western Canada.

Small family farms – once the biggest employers in the region – have been replaced by larger commercial operations.

And the wooden elevators, where farmers would congregate to talk crop prices and weather, have been replaced by hulking structures of concrete and steel far outside town.

“There’s a feeling in many of these towns that if they don’t have a grain elevator, a sense of identity and community has disappeared,” said Ali Piwowar, an architect who grew up in the prairies. “Some people say they feel their town could just blow away without the anchor point of an elevator.”

Dave Cuthbert points out the demolition process of a grain elevator in the Andrew grain elevator. Photograph: Kyler Zeleny/The Guardian

On a recent morning in Andrew, a cold wind whipped through the elevator’s broken windows as Cuthbert surveyed the latest damage inflicted by vandals.

When the elevator was first scheduled for demolition in 1998, local residents sprang into action, laying out an ambitious plan not only to preserve the building but also create a visitors’ centre.

“We’d hold fundraisers all the time,” said Cuthbert. “Corn roasts were always great, bringing out the families.” In the end, the group raised more than the C$20,000 needed to buy both the elevator and the land in 2002.

But the initial giddiness soon passed, as the daunting financial cost became clear: restoring the elevator to its full glory would have cost at least C$300,000

In a small building beside the elevator, once envisioned as the visitor’s centre, an ice-cream machine stands in the corner, covered in a thin layer of dust. A laminated sign offers tours for C$5.

And of the group that saved the elevator, some have lost interest, others have died or moved away.

“When you’re in your 50s and you want to save this thing, it seems like the greatest idea. You’re full of fire,” said Cuthbert. “But when you’re in your 70s? Well, it’s a bit of a different story.”

A wood-cribbed grain elevator along Highway 17 in Alberta. Photograph: Kyler Zeleny/The Guardian

With only C$2,000 remaining in the historical society’s bank account – not even enough for a single coat of paint – the elevator’s future remains in question. Tearing it down would cost as much as maintaining it, admitted Cuthbert.

The best hope for the remaining elevators is not to be preserved as a relic but as a building that serves the community, said Piwowar, whose master’s thesis examined potential ways to repurpose the buildings. During her research, residents told her they imagined the elevators reinvented as cafes, hotels or libraries.

But though they are emblematic of the Canadian prairies, there are few protections in place for the elevators. The buildings don’t fall under any umbrella federal heritage legislation, and only one – the Inglis grain elevators national historic site – has received protection for its historical significance.

None of the three prairie provinces are clamouring to assume responsibility for the elevators – most of which were once owned by private rail companies and grain co-ops.

And for good reason: built almost entirely from wood, and with fine grain clogging every crevice of most elevators, the ageing buildings are highly combustible.

Storage for grain samples inside the elevator in Andrew. Photograph: Kyler Zeleny/The Guardian

“There’s nothing really romantic about them,” said Jerry Code, a demolition expert who has helped bring down more than 300 of the structures. “We’re thinking about kids coming in and accidentally setting them on fire. Once they start burning, the local fire department can’t put them out.”

But residents of prairie towns often feel the demolitions do more than just change the physical geography: they warp the essence and cultural heritage of the region.

Instead of liabilities, elevators are seen as critical to the identity of the prairies, alongside golden wheat fields and the vast open sky.

“Driving across the flat parts of Canada and being able to see these architectural elements juxtaposed against the landscape, it really is magical,” said Piwowar.

The empty lot on the outskirts of Mundare, where nine grain elevators once stood. The community’s final elevator was demolished in 2013. Photograph: Kyler Zeleny/The Guardian

Mundare, a community half an hour’s drive from Andrew, once had nine elevators in its centre. On a recent morning, the town’s mayor, Mike Saric, shivered as he stood amid scrub grass and gravel where the elevators had once stood.

“I remember driving into town and you could see them over top of the trees and everything,” he said. “They brought people together, just like a church or cathedral would, standing above everything else.”

Mundare’s final elevator was brought down in 2013 down by Code and his team. Like last tree to fall in a clearcut forest, there was an inevitability to its loss.

On the final day, a small crowd lined the train tracks and highway to watch a sliver of town’s history collapse into a cloud of grain dust.

“It was tough to see,” said Saric. “It was the last piece of the skyline.”