Description of Historic Place

The Canadian National Railway Station Building is a Municipal Heritage Property prominently located at the northern terminus of Main Street in the Town of Gravelbourg. Built in 1913, the two-storey, wood-frame, stucco-clad building is distinguished by its broad overhanging eaves and its combined hipped and gable roof.

Heritage Value

The Canadian National Railway Building is of heritage value as Gravelbourg’s railway station from 1913 until 1981, when it was sold by the Railway. The station was built in the same year that rail service arrived in Gravelbourg and commemorates this milestone. The station was built by the Canadian Northern Railway at mile 78.5 of the Gravelbourg subdivision on the line between Avolea and Neidpath. In 1920 the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was subsumed into the new Canadian National Railway, from which the building takes its name. Until the late 1950s, the station was the depot for twice-weekly passenger service as well as for receiving mail and freight, and providing ticketing and telegram services.

The heritage value of the property also resides in its architecture, which exemplifies a standard third-class station plan of the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR Plan No. 100-52) with minor modifications. This slight variation is found in the addition of the small shed roof dormers to the gable roof portion of the building. Otherwise, like most third-class stations, it was designed to include residential quarters for the station agent on the ground floor and second storey. Numerous features original to the station’s design have been retained, including the freight room doors, multiple entrances, and the large triangular eave brackets. The stuccoed appearance dates to 1937 and recalls the modernization programme undertaken across the country during the 1930s by the Canadian National Railway.

Source:

Town of Gravelbourg Bylaw #765/81.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Canadian National Railway Station Building resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements which relate to the architecture of its exterior, including its cedar-shingled hipped and gable roof, the overhanging eaves with exposed rafters, the shed roof dormer windows, the pegged triangular eave brackets, the north elevation freight room doorway, the south elevation freight room doorway with multi-pane transom lights, and the multiple doorways to facilitate passenger and freight movement;
-those elements which relate to its former use as a railway station, including its original placement at the north end of Main Street on the south side of the railway tracks.