‘Beacon above Saskatoon’: Robin Hood sign comes down for repairs

One of Saskatoon’s famous landmarks was taken down Tuesday.

The neon Robin Hood sign, standing atop the tower at the flour mill in the central industrial neighbourhood since 1927, is due for some much-needed repairs.

Look way up #yxe!

The Robin Hood sign is coming down.

Don't worry. Crews are dismantling the sign and then spending the next two weeks to clean it up, add LED lights and then hoist it back up so it can shine brightly once again. pic.twitter.com/7FXhzGZTyU

— Keenan Sorokan (@KeenanSorokan) February 23, 2021

Crews slowly placed each letter of the sign on the ground with the help of a massive crane. The letters are to be sent to a machine shop for a total overhaul.

Dents and other deviations will be fixed and a new paint job will be applied before another company will attach LED lights all over the sign so it can shine brighter than it did before.

Ardent Mills Saskatoon plant manager Don Buness said the company wasn’t going to wipe away that history.

“The sign is going back up, and it will look better than ever,” Buness said. “It will hopefully be there for another four, five, six generations — as long as the Robin Hood flour mill is still in Saskatoon.”

The mill has gone through a few changes since it was first built, according to city archivist Jeff O’Brien.

Construction of the mill began in 1927 after Robin Hood purchased a mill at the site a year earlier.

The old section of the mill was demolished in 1938, and since that time, Robin Hood’s mill in Saskatoon has undergone a few corporate takeovers and mergers. It has become Ardent Mills, which is partially owned by Cargill, but the mill still makes Robin Hood brand flour as part of the ownership agreement.

“I read a description of the new mill, it said: ‘A new star shining on top of the industrial firmament of Saskatoon.’ That’s pretty excited about a new business opening up in town,” O’Brien said of the time when the neon sign first went up.

For many people growing up in Saskatoon, those neon lights have become a well-known landmark of the cityscape — and that’s something that’s not lost on Ardent Mills’ leadership.

Crews work to remove the Robin Hood sign, which has stood above Saskatoon since 1927, for repairs. (Keenan Sorokan/650 CKOM)

“That’s historical,” Buness said. “The people of Saskatoon appreciate it. We could have left it up there without lighting it up, but (Ardent Mills) wanted that. I give them full credit for appreciating it.”

The sign was built using 381 25-watt bulbs when the sign first lit up in December 1927, a massive number for the era.

“For most of Saskatoon, and certainly the older neighbourhoods, that’s a beacon in the sky,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien added a few reporters in 1930 were impressed by the sign during a nighttime airplane tour.

“They specifically mentioned from the great height they were at, you could clearly read the lit-up Robin Hood sign,” he said.

It wasn’t long ago when such a historic section of Saskatoon was sent to a dumpster instead of a machine shop for restoration. O’Brien said Saskatoon’s heritage preservation movement has come a long way over time.

“There ends up being a cost-benefit kind of tension because you can’t keep all of them,” O’Brien said. “But you have to keep some of them.

“The built landscape is like the water we swim through. It helps define us, at least with our collective identity within a physical space.”

Ardent’s ownership didn’t have to think too long about preserving the sign.

“They are eager to maintain a historical part of the building,” Buness said.

Alternatively, it’s attractive marketing for the brand.

“People connect that (sign) to them, and so for them, it’s advertising. For us, it’s heritage preservation,” O’Brien said.

While O’Brien says Saskatoon’s heritage preservation movement has advanced plenty in recent decades, saving an old sign from an old building would have been a very different conversation in the ’60s and ’70s.

“The default attitude would be, ‘Why would we want that old thing kicking around when we could have something brand new?’ ” O’Brien said.

“It’s something like a 180 in terms of how we feel about the value of older buildings.”

The repairs on the Robin Hood sign are expected to cost “well into the six figures,” and will take roughly two weeks before the sign shines once again, according to Buness.