Description of Historic Place

The Station Grounds of the Canadian Northern Railway Company is a Municipal Heritage Property situated in the Village of Hepburn. The 8.1-hectare property consists of a 1928 wood-cribbed grain elevator with a studded, wood-construction storage annex, a separate metal-clad office/engine shed, and the former railway grounds. The property is located on the western edge of the village.

Heritage Value

The Station Grounds of the Canadian Northern Railway Company is valued for its use as a grain elevator from completion in 1928 until 1991. In this capacity it served an integral economic role to the agriculturally dependent community. In its original role as Saskatchewan Wheat Pool Elevator #901, the elevator was one in a line of four facilities in the town to which area farmers delivered their grain for market and shipment. The elevator was constructed for the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and remained in use by the company until closure in 1991 when the Canadian National Railway discontinued the rail line through Hepburn. The elevator was the last grain company facility to remain operational in Hepburn and was responsible for all grain-handling activities in the village after the only other remaining company closed its elevator in 1976.

The heritage value of the Station Grounds of the Canadian Northern Railway Company is also associated with its architecture and is an excellent example of a ‘standard’ early-twentieth century grain elevator. The 35,000 bushel-capacity elevator is of the ‘sloped-shoulder’ variety with a gable-roof cupola, one of the most common elevator forms found on the Prairies. The elevator retains its lapped wood siding and its 35,000 bushel annex of studded wood-construction, built in 1953. Like most early elevators facilities, the office / engine shed is separate from the elevator structure as a means of fire prevention and constitutes a small, adjoining gable-structure connected by an elevated wooden platform. Once a common sight in each town, few of these wooden elevators remain, making the Hepburn Museum of Wheat a now-rare example of this type of structure.

The heritage value of the property also lies in its status as the location of the railway station in the village. Initially the station was developed by the Canadian Northern Railway, which became the Canadian National Railway in 1920. From 1908 until 1982 this railway station occupied a location just east of the Hepburn Museum of Wheat. A temporary station occupied the site from 1908 until 1930, when a new station was built. The station was a focal point of the social and economic activity for the village, with most goods and mail flowing through the station. On this property, north of the elevator and the station site, were the stockyards for the village where cattle and pigs were loaded and shipped. The stockyards were used extensively until the 1940s. The stockyard platform was also used for the unloading of farm equipment shipped by rail.

Source:

Village of Hepburn Bylaw No. 94/96.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Station Grounds of the Canadian Northern Railway Company resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements of the elevator associated with its architecture, such as its cribbed, wooden construction, ‘sloped-shoulder’ form with gable-roof cupola, drive shed with large sliding double doors and associated earthen driveway, lapped wooden siding, external augers and spouts, studded wood-construction gable-roof annex with lapped wooden siding and roofline ventilators, the adjoining wood-frame and metal-clad gable-roof office / engine shed, the walkway between the office / engine shed and the elevator;
-those elements associated with its use as a grain elevator, such as its location along the former railway right-of-way, its original brown-red paint colour, emblematic of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, and painted signage.