Description of Historic Place

The John Deere Plow Company Building is a Municipal Heritage property comprised of five commercial lots situated on a main throughway in Regina’s warehouse district. The property features a five-storey brick building that was constructed in 1913. The designation applies specifically to the exterior walls of the building and its original/existing pattern of window openings.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the John Deere Plow Company Building lies in its association with the province’s pre-World War I “wheat boom” period. By 1911, Saskatchewan was the leading wheat producing province in Canada. As a result, Regina became the dominant city in the province, laying claim to being the world’s largest distribution centre for agricultural implements. Constructed by the John Deere Plow Company Ltd. between March and July of 1913, this building was the largest warehouse in Regina at the time of its completion. The large size and prominent position of the building on a major thoroughfare, reflects the prominence and stability of the John Deere Plow Company in contributing to the economic life of the province.

Heritage value also resides in the architecture of the building. Designed by John Deere Plow Company architect Oscar A. Eckerman, the property was influenced by warehouses constructed in eastern North America. The John Deere Plow Company Building is a five-storey post and beam construction faced entirely in brown brick. The structural frame, characteristic of its utilitarian design, is expressed through the property’s flat roof, straight front, and rectangular window pattern. The articulation of the building’s parapet wall lends prominence to the corner bays. Stone panels flank the main Broad Street entrance with the north panel identifying the date 1837, the year John Deere developed his version of the steel plow, while the south panel is engraved with the date 1913, the year the building was constructed.

Source:

City of Regina Bylaw No. 2001-17.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the John Deere Plow Company Building resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those exterior elements which illustrate the “wheat boom” period, including the two dated stone panels flanking the main entrance, and the location of the building on it’s original site;
-those exterior elements of the property which reflect the property’s utilitarian warehouse design, including the flat roof, undecorated facade, and rectangular window pattern.