‘It hurts’: Gravelbourg braces for historic water tower demolition

Some big changes are coming to Gravelbourg’s horizon line as the town prepares to take down it’s historic water tower.

Built in 1928, the water tower has stood 150 feet over top of the town’s skyline for the past 96 years.

Toos Tiesen-Stefiuk, the board chair of the Gravelbourg District & Museum, said the tower will be decommissioned due to safety concerns.

“It’s terrible, nobody likes to see it going down,” she said. “But we have to be realistic, we can only save so much.”

The water tower’s steel structure began leaking a few years ago and it’s not in use anymore, she said.

“It will be a danger in storms because the school and the daycare are right beside it,” Tiesen-Stefiuk said. “So, the town cannot be responsible for that anymore.”

Darcy Stefiuk, Toos’ husband and mayor of Gravelbourg, said the community is replacing the town’s water lines on Main Street and 1st Avenue.

Along with money the town put down, Gravelbourg received $3.5 million in total for water line project. The town also qualified for a grant to demolish the water tower.

“It hurts,” he said. “We like to try and hang onto these things, it’s just the dollars and cents don’t make sense anymore.”

While there is some interest in revitalizing the tower when it goes down, Darcy said it cannot be salvaged because it is too costly to remove all the lead paint from steel.

People on social media are commemorating the tower by sharing photos and videos.

Some people have shared photos to social media to —quite literally — “Toast the Tower” during its final days. (Zach Ogilvie/Submitted)

Toos said someone has volunteered to take drone footage of the takedown.

Many of Gravelbourg’s building date back to the 1920s. For the past 20 years, Toos has been involved in saving the 1915 Western grain elevator on the edge of town.

On Gravelbourg’s town website, it said the elevator is the oldest of it’s kind in it’s original location.
After 30 years of fundraising and renovations, the elevator is in the final stages of restoration.

The community is also known to for historical sites like the Convent of Jesus and Mary and Our Lady of the Assumption Co-Cathedral.

Toos said it can be a struggle to preserve the town’s rich history with a population of 1,000.

“It’s not that the town doesn’t want to keep it,” she said. “It’s just we cannot afford it.”

Multiple takedowns have been scheduled for the water tower, but have been delayed due to weather. The tower is set to be decommissioned on Sept. 11.

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