BRESYALOR — In 1947, the residents of Bresaylor held meetings to discuss building a community hall. To raise money for the project, three dances were held in the loft of a large nearby barn.
An elevator annex was purchased from the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool at Maidstone. Volunteers dismantled the annex and hauled the lumber to Bresaylor.
Digging the basement became an enormous task. At the three-foot level, the workers hit hard clay. The top three feet of soil was removed with a one furrow plow and horse-drawn scrapers. The dirt was used to build up the main street to the highway. Below three feet, the plow broke from the hard soil and a tractor mounted plow was tried. Finally, a Cat with a homemade root ripper was used which, with difficulty, managed to rip up the soil so it could be removed.
They hired gravel trucks by donating what it would have cost them to haul gravel with farm trucks, saving them the labour of shovelling the gravel off by hand. A small cement mixer was positioned at each corner and these were used to mix the cement. After the cement was poured, a building bee went to work to get the hall closed in before winter.
Four farm trucks travelled east of Meadow Lake in -30 C weather to pick up a load of shavings. The trucks returned with the shavings, which were then put in the walls and ceiling for insulation. All this was accomplished in a single day.
Heavy oak flooring was purchased from a lumberyard in North Battleford for $1,500 for the dance floor. The floor was laid during the winter. Two tables were built around the supporting floor posts and a kitchen was built in the back of the basement.
By 1959, the floor in the basement had deteriorated from salinity, so two channel irons were put together from the back door to the basement. A two-horse scraper pulled by a long cable and tractor above ground was used to pull the scraper up the channel irons to the surface. Old cement, dirt and rotten lumber were shovelled into wheelbarrows and wheeled to the scraper.
The hall was used extensively for dances, suppers, meetings, card parties and other activities. By 1969 activities had diminished as travel to other centres was more prevalent. The hall was sold and put on blocks for moving, but the move never happened. It was then sold again with plans to rebuild it into a studio for pottery, sculpture and other media. That also never happened.
In 1989, when a tornado went through the area, some highway travellers took shelter in the old hall. Fortunately, the building wasn’t moved despite being on blocks.
The highway department bought the property and had it demolished before 2007 when the twinned highway was built over its location.
The Bresaylor Heritage Museum is open again for the summer by appointment until Aug. 31. Please phone Enola at 306-893-8002 or Bob at 306-895-2075 to arrange a guided tour by one of our volunteer staff. Check out the Bresaylor Heritage Museum Facebook page for more information.
