Stonewall plans fundraising effort to preserve historic kilns

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This article was published 24/02/2019 (2754 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Town of Stonewall will soon roll out a fundraising campaign aimed at saving the tall limestone kilns that have stood as symbols of the community’s history and DNA for more than a century, but are now in danger of collapse.

The fundraising efforts will be kicked-off at the first “Save the Kilns Organizational Meeting” that will be held March 11 at the Quarry Park Heritage Arts Centre in Stonewall.

To save the kilns, which have degraded drastically over the past decade according to a recent engineering report commission by the town, they will have to raise roughly $1.2 million.

“We’re going to have to do something in the very near future or we’re at risk of losing the structures. At the present time, we can still save them, but there will come a point when that won’t be the case. It’s kind of a ticking clock,” said Catherine Precourt, manager of the Stonewall Quarry Park.

Quarrying began in Stonewall in the late 19th century as part of the limestone industry in Manitoba. The practice long served as the economic force of the community.  The kilns were used in the production of high-quality quicklime, according to the Manitoba Historical Society.

Stonewall Mayor Clive Hinds has called the kilns the “DNA of Stonewall,” which represent not only the community’s history, but also its identity.

“People are worried we’re going to lose them. They’re a symbol of the community and a testament to the hard work of generations of men who worked in the quarry and who helped build this town and province,” Precourt said.

“We’ve known they’re in bad shape for a number of years and we’ve honestly been trying to do as much as we can to save them, but in a small community like Stonewall there are a lot of pulls on our resources.”

The last stabilization work done on the kilns was in 2003, Precourt said. In 2018, the town hired A.F. Eshmade & Associates Ltd. to produce an engineering report on the state of the kilns.

The report indicated they were in serious risk of collapse and that roughly $1.2 million in repair work would be needed to preserve them for future generations.

If nothing is done, at some point the kilns will deteriorate beyond repair. However, Precourt said the report wasn’t able to give an exact timeline on when that time will come.

“For numerous reasons they’ve been deteriorating — the weather, the freeze-frost cycle. They’ve continued to deteriorate and now they’re in worse shape than they ever have been before. We need to start taking some definite steps towards saving them,” Precourt said.

The town hopes the March 11 meeting will serve as a rallying cry to get people involved with raising the money needed to preserve the kilns, although Precourt said they’re aware that fundraising $1.2 million is a tall order for a small community.

“It’s a lot of money to raise. We’re very hopeful, but also realistic. We know there are other projects within our community. We know we have to be realistic,” she said.

“If it’s not possible to do the work and save all three kilns, our hope is that at the very least we’ll be able to save some, or one. The kilns are our identity. We would lose our identity if we lost the kilns.”

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

 

Twitter: @rk_thorpe