A big part of a central Alberta town’s history came crumbling down Wednesday.
The community of Mundare said goodbye to its last remaining grain elevator – the town’s most prominent landmark – as it was demolished on Wednesday.
The grain elevator’s demolition is said to be symbolic of agriculture moving out of rural Alberta and into larger city centres.
“This is happening because today, your elevators are all moved into the counties where they’re much larger and can handle much more grain,” said Mundare Mayor Mike Saric.
“CN doesn’t want to bring cars out to elevators this size anymore because they want to spot at least 100 railcars at an elevator which makes this one obsolete.”
Resident Harvey Spak showed up to say goodbye to the elevator – and film its demolition.
“It’s a landmark. You’re driving from Edmonton, the first thin you see when you’re coming home to Mundare is the elevator and you know you’re just about there,” Spak said.
“They’re a classic prairie fixture and their disappearing.”
The grain elevator used to be the agriculture hub of the rural Alberta community.
At one time, nine elevators were lined along tracks in Mundare.
“It's part of the change of our community. We knew it was coming, it's difficult to see it happen but we need to move forward,” Saric said.
Viterra, the company that owns the elevator, applied for a demolition permit last month.
At the time, the town asked residents for feedback on whether something should bed one to save the last remaining elevator – but Saric says there wasn’t much support or opposition either way.
“We really didn't get any response,” he said.
“One lady she did say that she would love to see it stay here, as we all would, it's a landmark, but at the end of the day, to get the money and people together to save it, it just didn't happen.”
Backhoes were brought in to weaken the bottom of the structure until it gave way Wednesday.
“It's kind of a sad situation but it's very interesting to see,” Spak said after watching the structure come tumbling down.
A changing rural landscape
Saric says the demolition marks a trend happening across the province.
“Rural Alberta is changing in a lot of ways,” he said.
“The agribusiness is moving out of small town Alberta and rural Alberta is definitely seeing the change.”
Crews are expected to send the next few days cleaning up what’s been destroyed so far, before finishing off the final section of the town’s last grain elevator.
Meanwhile the town is looking to a future without its iconic grain elevators.
Saric says in other rural areas that have lost their grain elevators, many towns have struggled to survive but Mundare is fortunate.
“We’re close enough to Edmonton where we’ve kind of reinvented ourselves in the last few years. We have a healthy school. We're not too far from Edmonton so people can commute. We're trying to build our community as a suburb,” Saric said.
“That’s the approach that we’re taking.”
But some features of the iconic structure are set to withstand the test of time.
Saric says the town is planning on keeping parts of the building, including the peak of the roof and some of the lumber, to try and keep part of the community’s history alive.
“In the hopes that we can get people together and perhaps a build a structure out of it to commemorate the last elevator in Mundare,” he said.
With files from Amanda Anderson
