Description of Historic Place

The Smith/Arthur Farm Elevator, completed in ca. 1905, is a tall wood-frame grain storage building situated in a farmyard near Gladstone. The municipal designation applies to the building.

Heritage Value

The Smith/Arthur Farm Elevator is a rare surviving example of a type of grain handling facility constructed on large progressive farms to make the storage of crops more efficient and less labour-intensive. The substantial building echoes the form of the earliest prairie line elevators and has sturdy walls of thick boards attached to heavy studs on narrow centres. It was designed to receive and, with the aid of mechanical equipment, store grain in separate main- and upper-floor bins. A system of chutes fed grain from upper to lower bins, making it accessible from the centre aisle. The structure, sans its elevator mechanism, continues to be used for grain storage, its tall cupola, a prairie icon with its narrow rectangular massing and sharp gable roof, visible from the nearby highway over some of the surrounding shelter belt.

Source: Rural Municipality of Westbourne By-law No. 1934, July 13, 2004

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Smith/Arthur Farm Elevator site include:
- its location in a farmyard, at the end of a long tree-lined lane, its top section visible from the nearby busy highway

Key exterior elements that define the building's utilitarian design include:
- the substantial form composed of a square base capped by a truncated hip roof and a narrow rectangular gable-roofed cupola
- the horizontal tongue-and-groove wood siding painted red with a contrasting white door of vertical boards and white corner trim
- the minimal fenestration, including two simple rectangular openings in the cupola and a multi-paned transom window over the door
- details such as the lightning rods on the roof, narrow exterior openings for extracting grain, etc.

Key elements that define the structure's interior character and grain-handling function include:
- the main-floor layout, with the door opening on a centre aisle, oriented east to west, flanked by two grain bins on each side and with a built-in ladder centred on the north side of the aisle
- the second floor with a central aisle running north-south and three bins on each side, each with a chute allowing it to be emptied into a lower bin
- the central cupola offering overhead access to each bin
- materials such as the sturdy wood plank walls of the storage areas