YORKTON — Over the last decade, community leaders in Yorkton saved one of the oldest flour mills on the Prairies.
Now, they’re building upon that success. They plan to construct an agriculture interpretative centre on the same site, which will connect to the 125-year-old mill.
“The interpretive centre will execute an agricultural education and advocacy mandate… like Agriculture in the Classroom and Farm and Food Care Saskatchewan,” said Terry Tyson, chair of the capital campaign for the Yorkton Brick Mill Heritage Society.
Local businesses and families in the Yorkton region have contributed more than $1.1 million to build the new centre.
In late August, Canadian Heritage provided a grant of $500,000, which has pushed the fundraising campaign much closer to its goal of $2 million.
Tyson, general manager of Grain Millers Canada, an oat processing company in Yorkton, said the new centre will be called the Interpretative Station at the Mill. It will resemble the train stations that were built on the Prairies in the 1890s and early 1900s.
“The Interpretative Centre will provide current and reliable information to those who may not understand or appreciate where their food comes from, or who produces it,” says a brochure explaining its purpose.
Yorkton is an appropriate site for such a centre because it’s a hub of agri-food processing in Western Canada. Besides Grain Millers, Richardson International and Louis Dreyfus operate large-scale canola crushing plants in Yorkton. Harvest Meats, a maker of sausages and sandwich meats, employs more than 300 people at its processing plant and more than a 1,000 people may have agri-food processing jobs in a city with a population of 17,000.
“Yorkton and our area is built on agriculture and agri-food processing, and yet people are more and more removed from farms all the time,” said Tyson, who committed his time and energy to the project for a couple of reasons.
Grains Millers believes in “Ag-vocacy” and spreading a positive message about agriculture. Personally, he believes it’s critical to maintain a connection to the past.
“I’m 50 years old and there are so many people, my age and younger, that really don’t have an appreciation for our heritage and history.”
The new centre will be attached to what locals call the Brick Mill.
Built in 1898, it is one of a few heritage flour mills that remain on the Prairies and the only one made from bricks.
The Yorkton Brick Hill Heritage Society was formed in 2012 to save and restore the yellow brick building, which has been abandoned for decades.
The restoration took eight years, but it was a success.
In 2021, Saskatchewan’s Lieutenant Governor Russell Mirasty recognized the project with three awards for preserving the province’s heritage.
A sod turning ceremony for the agricultural interpretative centre is scheduled for Sept. 15.
Tyson expects construction to begin this fall.
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