INNISFAIL – The second new modern-day prairie giant has risen in town.
It’s actually only nine feet or so tall but nevertheless stands proudly on the far east side of town not far from the intersection of Main Street and Highway 2A.
It’s another heartfelt creation from the town’s parks staff to honour the still standing seed elevator that has been a fixture in the downtown core since 1958, and the centre of operations for the Innisfail Municipal Seed Cleaning Plant Ltd.
Last April parks staff built a nine-foot-tall replica country grain elevator at White Rock Garden by the intersection of 52nd and 54th avenues.
The idea at that time was triggered when staff was trying to find a “multi-tasking” solution for a parks horticulturalist.
This led to a replica country grain elevator covering up an installed 1,000-litre tote to provide a reliable water source at White Rock Garden.
Brad Wilson, the town’s parks foreman, said the idea behind the seed elevator replica creation was triggered by the need to cover up an unused electrical plug on an old concrete pad.
“We just wanted to hide the electrical plug-in to make it look a little nicer there,” said Wilson, who had design and construction help from parks operators Steven Vincent, Cora Desnoyer and Kevin Gurnett.
“It was built in our shop on days when we had a few minutes here or there to try and we put it all together.”
He said the new replica seed elevator was then put together at the chosen site on April 14.
Back in the winter of 2022 and 2023 when the replica country grain elevator was built at White Rock Garden the parks crew also had the town’s glorious past in mind and wanted to properly honour Innisfail’s heritage.
At one time Innisfail had up to eight country grain elevators along the CP rail line, just a stone’s throw away from White Rock Garden.
The town’s seed elevator, the last elevator of any kind in town, has been around for about 65 years, and it too has played an important part in local agricultural history.
“It’s just one of those things that kind of brings history forward,” Wilson said of the latest project. “We wanted to give it some sort of tribute while it's still around.”
As for future projects he said there is no official plan on how many elevator projects his staff will do in the future but said the next one could happen between winter and spring.
“It's just one of those things where it's a nice project to do to keep everybody busy, and a thing in town that we'd like to cover up so that it's not quite so industrial looking,” said Wilson.
