Town’s marquee centre is back

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/01/2011 (5546 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

STONEWALL — It took more than teamwork to make this phoenix rise from the ashes.

Stonewall’s plan to rebuild its Quarry Park interpretive centre — the previous centre burned to the limestone ground in 2007 — had stalled. A major source of funding fell through.

Council decided to take a six-month breather to review its options. Perhaps it had dreamed too big. One option was to drastically scale back the building plans.

Then the government recession-proofing fund rode to the rescue.

A $2.7-million grant from the federal-provincial economic stimulus program made the new $7-million facility possible. The centre is one of 207 stimulus-fund projects approved in Manitoba. The building is on schedule for completion March 31 and will be open to the public this summer.

The new heritage centre is four times the size of the old one.

“The stone quarries help define Stonewall,” said Quarry Park manager Catherine Precourt, explaining the importance of the centre to the community.

The new building’s most noteworthy feature is the second floor with its bank of windows that provide a panorama of the historic kilns and quarry grounds.

“The park is beautiful and we wanted to capture as much natural light as possible,” Precourt said.

The second floor can host weddings, banquets and the performing arts. It has a stage, quality sound system and theatre seating for 225 people.

It’s an effort to show that Stonewall is more than just a sports town, Precourt said. The interpretive centre will be named Quarry Park Heritage Arts Centre.

A steel-girder walkway over the bowl-shaped quarry connects the parking lot to the heritage centre. The centre also has a wraparound deck.

The main floor will house offices, meeting rooms and an interpretive centre with a diorama by renowned Chase Studio, near Branson, Mo. The diorama will take viewers back 450 million years, when Manitoba was covered by an inland sea and situated over the equator. A reef formed over where Stonewall is today, from which limestone was mined for almost 90 years.

The interpretive centre will include galleries displaying Manitoba geology, pioneer history and a history of the limestone quarries.

Many historical treasures were destroyed by the Quarry Park Interpretive Centre blaze of 2007. RCMP call the fire “suspicious” and its cause has still not been determined.

Local people have generously donated artifacts from family collections. A private quarry from Stony Mountain has donated a fossil collection.

In addition to economic stimulus funds, the town ponied up more than $1 million, and insurance money from the fire made up about $3 million.

“We wanted the interpretive centre replaced and we’ve replaced it with a facility that hopefully will bring folks out to visit our community,” said Pat Corbin, deputy mayor of Stonewall, 24 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

Quarry Park covers 32 hectares. It has an artificial lake, campground and a baseball complex capable of hosting tournaments.

The population of Stonewall has grown rapidly in the past two decades from an influx of commuters and now totals more than 4,000.

The town was founded in 1878 after Samuel “Stonewall” Jackson bought land and had it subdivided into lots.

The first limestone quarry started in 1880. The town was officially incorporated in 1908.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca