A piece of Weyburn's history saved from the wrecking ball of Souris Valley in 2009, the James Eadie mural, will be unveiled in its new home at the Soo Line Historical Museum on Monday, Nov. 18.
The unveiling ceremony will be held at 2 p.m., and will be hosted by Art Wallace, longtime historian and former president of the Historical Society.
There will be coffee, tea and refreshment served, and everyone is invited to attend.
Those who helped salvage and recover the mural were invited to the ceremony, but some parties will not be able to make the ceremony, such as United Wrecking, who salvaged the wall painting from the former Souris Valley building as they were demolishing it.
As the demolition took place through 2009, it was thought there was no way to save the mural, but the foreman of the demolition crew took it on himself to salvage the painting; Stewart Steel was able to provide steel for the transporting of the mural from the Souris Valley grounds to the Soo Line Museum in mid-September of that year.
The painting, which depicts in part the Regina Riots of 1935, was done by a patient, James Eadie, in 1955 as part of his therapy; he would have been nine years old at the time of the Regina Riots.
Representatives of ArtsVest will be present as well, as they contributed funds to help preserve the mural along with Valleyview Petroleum, and the Weyburn Rotary Club president Duane Schultz will be on hand to make a donation to the museum.
Schultz has a small family connection to the mural, in that his father worked at Souris Valley as a psychiatric nurse, and he used to sit with Eadie as he painted the mural. Eadie also did a sketch of Schultz's father that the family still has hanging in their home.
The mural is now in a new display case, which was donated along with the labour and materials to the museum, and the mural is ready for public viewing once again.
"It looks so good now," said Joan Gregory, manager of the Soo Line Museum. "This is about saving a part of the history of Weyburn."
Part of the preservation included making a large canvas print from photos taken by members of the Soo Line Camera Club.
Wallace recalled that he, Sid Trepoff and Art Beck were able to gain access to where the mural was located in the Souris Valley building while it was being demolished, and had to spend two sessions there photographing it.
Wallace shot with colour negative film, Beck with colour slide film, and Trepoff shot digital; the print made is nearly as big as the original mural, said Wallace, with the original size at around 14 feet long.
This print was made after an art preservationist came in to the museum and looked at it, and quoted a price of $279,000 to restore it, said Wallace, but the museum was in no position to pay a price like that.
