As it can now be seen on the silo of his farm, silhouettes of both twin towers adorn the smooth concrete side, joined by three separate flags, and a bald eagle painted as the American flag. While some of the project was even started last year, it was completed earlier this summer.

“He came up with the idea last year,” said Amanda Swanson-Myles. “He stood on the back of his truck and painted the silo white, but he could only get about halfway up. I painted the towers last year. This year he wanted to go all the way up. Clyde Rodgers lent us the lift so we could do it.”

The silo, which was built in 1914, was made with poured concrete, which is why it had a smooth side to paint white. Swanson-Myles said it took about eight days of work to get the project completed, and they got lucky dodging some of the rain.

“We basically worked from 9 to 9 every day until it was done,” Swanson-Myles said.

John Swanson’s Sinclairville silo, shown above, on Thornton Road has been turned into a 9/11 memorial, in time for the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

While the mural for the towers was a given, there was some time spent trying to figure out what to do for the rescuers. Eventually, Swanson-Myles looked up the flags used to honor the police, firefighters, and military members, which is where the three flags come from. And even though the mural is finished, there may actually still be more added.

“We wanted to do something for the rescuers,” Swanson-Myles said. “We knew the police had the mourning flag, so I looked up the flags for the firefighters and military members. Each flag has a different colored stripe. We wanted to do something about the flight that was diverted to the field in Pennsylvania, Flight 93, so we’ll probably add that somewhere too.”

The pictures of the silo were posted on Facebook on Swanson-Myles’ Facebook page, where they have received a lot of positive feedback. She said there have been hundreds of shares on the post so far, and people have requested coming by to take their own pictures.

“We did not expect this feedback,” said Swanson-Myles. “We’re definitely glad we did it.”

Swanson, 82, painted the silo white, while his daughter took care of the other artwork. The Swansons have no personal connection to 9/11, but felt it was just the right thing to do.

“It’s just a memorial,” Swanson-Myles said. “We have no personal connections, and we had just been talking about it for a while. I didn’t think it would actually happen, but it did. It wouldn’t have been possible without the lift.”