The old flour mill site in Yorkton is considered by some a valuable heritage property with potential as a tourist attraction.
Others see the site as an eyesore which should be removed forever from the city skyline.Sadly, time has probably tipped the scales toward removal of the buildings.
A step in that direction was taken by Yorkton Council at its last regular meeting June 28, as they unanimously supported a recommendation to remove all buildings on the site except for the stone mill building itself.
The hope is that the removal of the dilapidated elevator and annex will enhance chances that someone will want to buy the site, including the stone mill from the City.
Don't hold your breath on that happening.
The costs of restoring the stone mill would be extensive, and the additional costs of dealing with the other buildings would not likely tip a deal one way or the other.
There were letters to Council, and three verbal presentations at the June 28 meeting, all supportive of saving the stone building, and most suggesting the elevator should have been saved because they are becoming increasingly rare on the Prairies.
The verbal presentations to Council were impassioned, but there was an underlying sadness to them as well.
Sheila Harris pointed out the discussion around how best to deal with the old mill has gone on for years, in fact decades. She is right. The fate of the mill has come up in the past, generally every time the property is left without an owner. Then the fears the buildings may be demolished would resurface, and with it the pleas they be preserved.
The problem is, as much as the community in general seems supportive of saving the mill, no one has taken any steps over the years to do anything to ensure it.
There has never been a vision for the mill, at least one with a consorted effort behind it to see it through.
There was no foundation established to fundraise for the project. No vision by Council's of the past, or by a citizen's group to see the property do more than it has over the last 20-years, generally fall into a condition which has probably quashed any hope of being saved, based on the costs of bringing the building back to a useful state.
With its historic ties to the earliest days of Yorkton, and its uniqueness as the only stone built mill in the province, it is an architectural and cultural icon that sadly is not likely to survive.
The current Council may go down as the one pulling the trigger on the property, but the complacency of past Councils and the community at-large signed the death warrant bit-by-bit over the years.
