Description of Historic Place

The Lumsden & District Heritage Museum is a Municipal Heritage Property located at 50 Qu’Appelle Drive West in the Town of Lumsden. The property features a collection of log and wood-frame, one-and two-storey buildings which have been relocated from surrounding communities. The five buildings were constructed between 1890 and 1912.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Lumsden & District Heritage Museum resides in its collection of buildings and the historical and architectural significance each made to the settlement and development of the Lumsden district.

The frame, tin-sided Tregarva Community Hall was constructed in 1890 near the Village of Tregarva and served as a rural school until a larger school was built in 1907. It then was used as a community centre and continued this function after being acquired by the Grain Growers Association in 1917. From 1914 to 1925 the building also was used as a Presbyterian and Methodist church, and as a United Church until 1952. When the congregation joined the Brora United Church that year, the Tregarva Curling Club purchased the building and subsequently moved it into Tregarva in 1955. After the last community dance in June 1980, the building sat vacant until being moved to the museum site in the early 1990s.

The Forest Church was dedicated as Forest Presbyterian Church on September 19, 1897 and closed in 1956 when members joined the Lumsden United Church. Museum volunteers dismantled the wood-frame and brick-veneered building in 1993 and began rebuilding it at the museum site in 1996. It was rededicated on September 20, 1997, one hundred years after it was originally opened. Although the reconstructed church is slightly smaller than the original, it is representative of the small rural churches constructed throughout Saskatchewan at the turn of the last century.

The Kedleston School was built in 1912 in the Hamlet of Kedleston, located northwest of Regina Beach. This wood-frame, one-room building served the community as a school until 1963, and also served as a community centre for church services, weddings and agricultural shows. The school was moved to the museum site in 1988 and is a representative example of the era of one-room school houses in Saskatchewan.

The two-storey frame and gable-ended Hunter House was built in 1910 at number 60 3rd Avenue in Lumsden by W.J. McCalmon, the local blacksmith. Brothers Fred and Harry Hunter purchased the house about 1918 for their father, Thomas William Hunter. The house remained in the family until the death of Cecil Hunter, the last of ten children, in 1990. It was sold to the town by the estate and moved to the museum site in 1993.

The Edwards family log house was constructed in 1902 for Jack and Bessie Edwards, a pioneer ranching family in the Little Arm River Valley east of Findlater. Jack and his new wife Bessie moved to his parents homestead in 1899 and three years later built a log house on the property using logs from the old homestead. The large logs for Jack and Bessie’s house were obtained from the Macdowall area south of Prince Albert. Jack and Bessie’s youngest son lived in this house from 1916 until his death in 2003. Of small and functional design, the one-and-one-half-storey house, one of only a few remaining log structures in the district, was moved to the museum site in 2009.

Source:

Town of Lumsden Bylaw No. 2-2009.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Lumsden & District Heritage Museum lies in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements that reflect the historical association of the buildings with the community, including their location on the museum grounds;
-those elements that reflect the architectural influences of Tregarva Community Hall, including its functional rectangular wood-frame structure and exterior finish of wood siding and pressed tin;
-those elements that reflect the architectural influences of Forest Church, such as the pointed-arch windows, which are reminiscent of the Gothic Revival style, and the steeply pitched gable roof;
-those elements that reflect the architectural influences of Kedleston School, including the simple plan, frame structure and wood siding;
-those elements that reflect the architectural influences of the Hunter House, such as
its frame construction, steeply pitched gable-ended roof, and compact massing;
-those elements that reflect the early pioneer influences of the Edwards family log house, including the dove-tailed square logs.