The very first Kotzur silo has been donated back to the family after nearly 60 years.

Walla's Andrew Kotzur, owner of Kotzur silos, said his late father, Ray, built the structure and delivered it to Henty's David Muller in December 1962.

"I was four days short of four months old, so I don't remember a lot about it," he said.

Though Mr Muller was vague on the details, family folklore has it the original negotiation for the silo was held over a dinner party between Ray Kotzur, his wife Margaret, Mr Muller and his wife, Neva, who was cousins with Ray.

Mr Muller said they'd talked about using a flat steel sheet and he'd liked the idea.

"I remember saying to [Andrew's] dad, 'if you make a silo I'll be happy to take one', but we didn't decide on a price until he'd brought it up," he said.

The silo was eventually bought for about 165 pounds.

Mr Kotzur said the silo was significant because it was the first to be built in the factory and delivered in one piece.

"As best as I can tell that would have been pretty unique at that time," he said.

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"Other silos you could buy at that time you bought the bits and assembled them onsite, whereas this was fully made in the factory and delivered to the site.

"I don't know if it's the first, but it would certainly be one of the first silos in Australia that were made fully transportable.

"But now as the silos have gotten bigger we do have more capacity on farms where we send the components out because they're just too big to transport."

Since then, Kotzur's have produced about 27,000 silos, which have been delivered all around the country.

Mr Kotzur said silo designs had come a long way over those decades.

"This one there was no engineering calculations or anything like that," he said.

"It was just make it on the shop floor, whereas now, we go through a really rigorous engineering and design process.

"This one originally held about 40 tonne of wheat or something like that.

"Now the largest individual silo that we produce holds 12,000 tonnes in one silo, so they're a bit bigger."

Mr Muller said he was honoured to return the silo to the Kotzurs, but couldn't help teasing that it was quite lucky the silos these days were better built.

"Those rivets didn't hold in so well," he said.

"I had to put those extra bolts in, but I wasn't going to say anything about that."

But Mr Kotzur joked back.

"Actually what they told me is they wanted to tidy up their place and it was an eyesore," he said.

Mr Kotzur said the original silo would now take a proud place in the backyard of his family home.

"It's going to become a garden ornament," he said.

"Probably with either a shed or a bar in it."

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