{"nrhp_refnum":"84001189","name":"Terminous Culling Chute","other_names":["Tower Park Culling Chute"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"14900 W. CA 12","address_restricted":false,"city":"Lodi","county":"San Joaquin County","state":"CA","lat":38.10975845400003,"lon":-121.50010773799994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1984-04-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Engineering","Architecture","Agriculture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story wood-frame culling chute beside Little Potato Slough at Tower Park near Lodi, in the historic community of Terminous, San Joaquin County, California. The Western Pacific Railroad designed and built it around 1927.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it represents a significant phase in the growth of agribusiness in the San Joaquin Delta, centered on celery packing and shipping. It is also described as a rare surviving vernacular agricultural-industrial structure of the 1920s that shows engineering principles of the period with its integrity intact.","narrative":"Rising three stories beside Little Potato Slough at Terminous, this narrow wood-frame culling chute was built by the Western Pacific Railroad around 1927. It measures roughly 40 feet long and 8 feet wide, with an open lower frame resting on concrete retaining walls, eight numbered wooden chutes with trap doors, and an engine room for the conveyor belt on top. Inside the neighboring packing sheds, celery and other Delta crops were washed, sorted and packed for shipment east, and inferior cull stock rode a conveyor to the chute, where it was loaded onto trucks and hauled to area farms. The structure is listed as evidence of the Delta's agribusiness boom, when rail service, standardization and corporate growers such as John C. Maurer and Sons made Terminous a major celery center in the late 1920s and 1930s. Its exposed truss framework also reflects the engineering of its time, and it appears to be the sole remnant of that era in the Delta.","period_of_significance":"1900- (specific date ca. 1927)","architect_builder":"Western Pacific Railroad","architectural_style":"Vernacular agricultural-industrial structure; modified Long truss combined with balloon frame","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Marked unoccupied; integrity described as intact with only minor deterioration of the conveyor belt. The site is within a park and marina.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:27.307773-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/84001189.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123861421","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/san-joaquin-county/terminous-culling-chute-84001189/"}