Key Number:	HS 30121
Site Name:	Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator
Other Names:	St. Albert - Alberta Wheat Pool Elevator No 1
Site Type:	0416 - Mercantile/Commercial: Storage Elevator

Location

ATS Legal Description:

			Twp	Rge	Mer
			54	25	4

Address:	4 B Meadowview Drive
Number:
Street:
Avenue:	Mission
Other:
Town:	St. Albert
Near Town:

Media

Type	Number	Date	View	Source

Architectural

Style:	Single Wood Elevator & Cribbed Annex(es)
Plan Shape:	Irregular
Storeys:	Storeys: 4 or more
Foundation:	Basement/Foundation Wall Material: Concrete
Superstructure:	Wood Cribbing
Superstructure Cover:	Wood: Clapboard (Bevel or Drop Siding)
Roof Structure:	Medium Gable
Roof Cover:
Exterior Codes:	Elevator: Logo: Alberta Wheat Pool Elevator: Paint Colour: CPR Red Elevator: Associated Buildings: Office Elevator: Associated Buildings: Outbuilding
Exterior:	Roofing is wood shingles. Superstructure Cover: beveled cedar shingles. Office and two outbuildings. Painted red with A.W.P. logo in white.
Interior:	Capacity 34,000 bu 952 tonnes.
Environment:	N/A
Condition:	Good (2009)
Alterations:	N/A

Historical

Construction:	Construction Date:
Constructed	1929/01/01
Usage:	Usage Date:
Grain Elevator	1929/01/01
Owner:	Owner Date:
Alberta Wheat Pool The City of St. Albert	1929/01/01 1992/01/01

Architect:	N/A
Builder:	McDougal
Craftsman:	N/A
History:	Previous address: 108 Mission Avenue This traditional elevator is a representative example of many standard plan elevators built Alberta Pool Elevators Ltd. Grain Co. in 1929. The Albert Pool Elevators Ltd. constructed a standard plan elevator at St. Albert in 1929 as part of the massive building program undertaken by the growing Pool movement at the end of the 1920s. The elevator retains a good degree of form, materials and functional features, with minor alterations, associated with its historic period of operation by the Alberta Wheat Pool. The point closed in closed in 1989. Together with the 1906 elevator built by Alberta Grain Co. it forms a row of two complexes. The threat of demolition of the elevators in a rapidly changing St. Albert landscape gave the elevators cherished landmark value and preservation efforts ensured they were ultimately acquired from the Alberta Wheat Pool by the City of St. Albert as part of a museum complex. Other observations : The elevators at St. Albert, owned by the City of St. Albert, were provincially designated as a Registered Historic Resource -1992/11/15. * * * RESOURCE Alberta Wheat Pool Elevators No. 1 and 2 ADDRESS 44 Meadowview Drive, St. Albert BUILT 1906 and 1929 DESIGNATION STATUS Registered Historic Resource HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE These two grain elevators were built in 1906 and 1929 respectively. The 1906 elevator was extensively rebuilt and remodeled in 1937 to accommodate new equipment and to increase capacity. Nevertheless, a construction date of 1906 makes this an early example of the tall, rectangular elevators which began to replace older flat warehouse facilities in Western Canada after 1881. Indeed this elevator was built just ten years after the first elevator of this type in Alberta was built by the Brackman-Kerr Milling Company in Edmonton in 1896. This early elevator was also built on Canadian Northern property, but before the rail line had even reached St. Albert. The 1906 elevator was owned and operated by a series of companies beginning with the Alberta Grain Company and its successor, the Alberta Pacific Grain Company. Alberta Pacific operated the elevator until 1967, when it was sold to Federal Grain, who in turn sold their holdings to the Alberta Wheat Pool. This gave the Pool two elevators in St. Albert since they had built the second of these two elevators themselves in 1929. Both elevators continued in use until 1989 when the Alberta Wheat Pool finally closed its operations in St. Albert. Threatened with demolition, they were saved by the City of St. Albert and the Musee Heritage Museum and made part of the museum complex. * * * D-1723b - ALBERTA WHEAT POOL ELEVATOR, ST. ALBERT HISTORICAL CONTEXT: When Father Lacombe established his Mission on the north bank of the Sturgeon River in 1861, he began not only a church which would evolve into an Oblate bishopric, he also initiated a settlement which would evolve into a town and, eventually, a city. By 1870, the population around the Church had increased to such an extent that the spread out community had become the largest settlement between Winnipeg and Vancouver. It was Lacombe's intent to have the Metis resident around his parish become farmers, and so he encouraged them to till the soil. By the time the settlement was surveyed in 1880, many of the river lots featured gardens and small fields of wheat, oats and barley. From this time until the middle of the 20th century, St. Albert was mainly a farming community. Initially, most grain grown in the fields around St. Albert was for domestic use, some as fodder for horses and cattle, and some for the making of bread, with wheat ground into flour with domestic mills. Then, after the Calgary & Edmonton Railway arrived South Edmonton in 1891, some of the grain from the district began to be shipped to outside markets from this terminal. The 1890's also saw much land beyond St. Albert opened up for homesteading. The community itself therefore continued to grow and take on he appearance of a northern prairie farming town, and, in 1899, it was incorporated as a village with over 100 people. During these years, the St. Albert Trail saw many horse-drawn wagon loads of grain taken to the railhead in Strathcona, or to various mills in Edmonton or Strathcona. In St. Albert itself, a flourmill was built in 1906 by a group of local businessmen called the St. Albert Company. In the fall of 1905, the Canadian Northern Railway entered Edmonton from the east, and, immediately, grain elevators sprang up in the east end of Edmonton. The trip for St. Albert farmers to sell grain at the elevators of Edmonton was therefore made much shorter. Also, more farmland in the areas out from St. Albert was opened up for settlement as a result. The year before, St. Albert had been incorporated as a town with over 200 people. Some farmers, however, now began selling their grain at St. Albert's first grain elevator, built in 1906 by the St. Albert Company. Then, in 1909, on the strength of provincial government bond guarantees, the Canadian Northern Railway constructed a rail line from its terminal in Edmonton across the Sturgeon River to the west side of St. Albert with the full intention of having it divide at this location, with lines eventually continuing on to Vancouver, the Peace River Country, and Athabasca Landing. With the completion of the Canadian Northern line to St. Albert, the town became immediately eligible for a railway grain elevator, and so, one was built by the Alberta Grain Company in about 1909. In 1928, the Gillespie Grain Company also built an elevator in St. Alberta, and, in 1929, the district would see the construction of its largest grain elevator to date, this being a 35,000 bushel Alberta Wheat Pool elevator, located just south from the original Alberta Pacific structure. The Wheat Pool was a farmer-owned co-operative created six years earlier through the United Farmers of Alberta, with Henry Wise Wood in charge. The chief appeal of their elevators was that grain marketed through them would be sold without any mid-point entrepreneurs siphoning off profits. It was also recognized that pooling would protect the farmer owners from extreme fluctuations in grain prices. Like the earlier Alberta Pacific elevator, the Alberta Wheat Pool elevator in St. Albert would survive until grain marketing from this point would cease in 1989. In fact, in 1967, the Alberta Wheat Pool took over the old Alberta Pacific structure. Both elevators would manage to survive, and, in 1992, they were designated a registered historic resource. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The historical significance of the Alberta Wheat Pool elevator in St. Albert lies primarily in its structural representation of the method of storing and marketing grain from this community to the outside world from 1929 until the 1950's, during which time, the principal economy of St. Albert was the production and export of grain. * * * * Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator, St. Albert Heritage Resource Management Branch, 2004 DESCRIPTION OF HISTORIC PLACE The Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator is a rectangular traditional wooden elevator with drive shed, engine house and drivelines, located immediately east of the Alberta Grain Company Elevator on a 0.8 hectare parcel of land adjacent to the Canadian National Railway (C.N.R.) line on Mission Avenue in the City of St. Albert. HERITAGE VALUE The historical significance of the Alberta Wheat Pool (A.W.P.) Grain Elevator lies in its ability to provide structural evidence of the activities of the Alberta Wheat Pool, which played a critical role in the political, economic and social life of the province's farmers throughout the twentieth century. The grain economy of central Alberta was established at the turn of the twentieth century when the region was opened for settlement by the construction of two railways to Edmonton. The Canadian Northern (after 1919, the Canadian National) Railway then reached St. Albert in 1909. In 1929, the Alberta Wheat Pool constructed the agricultural district's largest grain elevator to date, just east of the town's first elevator (built by the Alberta Grain Company in 1906). The 1929 35,000 bushel elevator was derived from the standard plans used by the A.W.P. at the end of the 1920s as it was undergoing its initial period of rapid expansion. This is one of the oldest remaining A.W.P. elevators. The elevator is also significant for its association with the Alberta Wheat Pool, a cooperative founded in 1923 during the administration of the United Farmers of Alberta (1921-35). Like other wheat pools, it sought to maximize returns to farmers by marketing their grain directly to the Central Selling Agency in Winnipeg, providing an alternative to selling through middlemen and the Grain Exchange. By the mid-twentieth century the A.W.P. had more elevators in Alberta than any other company; it acquired the neighbouring Alberta Grain Company Grain Elevator in St. Albert in 1967. The Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator retains a good degree of integrity and is a rare example of an A.W.P. elevator, as many have been demolished and the A.W.P. merged into Agricore in 1998. The grain elevator's tall silhouette became an icon for the prairie west in the first half of the century. The Alberta Grain Company Grain Elevator and the Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator form an elevator row that is a landmark for the community of St. Albert. Source: Alberta Community Development, Heritage Resource Management Branch (Files: Des. 1723 and Des. 2174) CHARACTER-DEFINING ELEMENTS The heritage value of the Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator lies in such character-defining elements as: - form, scale, and massing of the elevator and its ancillary structures; - the tall rectangular design expressing its grain handling function, with wooden crib construction, exposed structural members, sloping shoulder design, wood framing, and cupola - beveled cedar siding; - in situ components of the grain handling systems, such as the elevator leg and distributor; weigh scale, hopper scale, and drive shed scale bed; control wheel and levers, electric motors, bins, hopper, belts and pulleys for the vertical conveyor belt; wood bins and chutes; man-lift; - prominent corporate signage; - the external visual relationship between the site and the rail line, and to the Alberta Grain Company Grain Elevator. * * * Built in 1929 by the Alberta Wheat Pool Cooperative, next to the Alberta Grain Co. elevator in St. Albert. Used until 1989 when St. Albert was abandoned as a grain export point. Acquired by the City of St. Albert, and designated a significant historic resource of HRV 1 in 1992.

Internal

Designation Status:	Designation Date:
Provincial Historic Resource	2007/01/19

Register:	N/A

Links

Internet:
Alberta Register of Historic Places:	4665-1071