Prairie Icons Project

Historic prairie architecture is disappearing. That famous sentinel, the grain elevator, is being replaced by concrete terminals. The hip roof barn of calendars and cards is giving way to prefabricated metal buildings. Vinyl is covering historic facades.

As with the Prairie Churches Project, this was a collaborative effort with the J. M. Kaplan Fund of New York, the Thomas Sill Foundation and the Historic Resources Branch of the Province of Manitoba. Kaplan and Sill contributed $54,400 and $54,000, respectively, to the project, and the Historic Resources Branch provided technical assistance and the allocation of existing budgets for heritage preservation.

The selection of icons funded was subject to a proactive process that sought to identify the most unique architectural structures of a particular type in rural Manitoba. Barns, railway stations, bridges, grain elevators and so on were eligible for consideration on a matching basis.

The following structures were funded:

Portage railway station	$15,000
gimli dancehall	15,000
Inglis Elevators National Historic Site	10,000
Commonwealth AIR Training Museum, Brandon	10,000
neubergthal housebarn	10,000
Tergesen general store, gimli	8,000
carberry heritage district	8,000
hans erickson log house, lac du bonnet	7,500
emerson court housee	6,000
DARLINGFORD WAR MEMORIAL PARK	5,105
gardenton bridge	4,000
willow plains school, sarto	3,800
angusville heritage hall	2,300
log repair workshop, austin	2,000
swistun family boodas	1,695
	$108,400

Manitoba’s rural architecture is under-appreciated and, therefore, threatened. This project has helped to raise awareness of that threat by focussing on the best examples for preservation.

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