The circa 1912 historic post office in Melfort, Sask., is in the midst of a massive preservation and rehabilitation project that will see the 107-year-old Main Street building reworked with hundreds of post boxes, 10 commissioned artworks and upwards of 100 “community tiles.”
The tiles were painted by locals of all ages this May and June, when people in the northeast Saskatchewan city added their personal touch to the revitalization project, which will include an 11-metre-by-three-metre mural slated to be completed by Oct. 31.
In 2012, John Burton, of Avatex Heritage Lands, partnered with the city of Melfort to purchase and preserve the old post office building.
“The objective is to commemorate the history of the postal service in Canada as a starting point,” Brenda Mellon, artist and project co-ordinator, told the Humboldt Journal this May.
“Then we really wanted to be inclusive of the whole community. We want people to come in and feel they’re connected to the mural when they come in.”
The Romanesque Revival-style post office is one of the few remaining early 20th-century public buildings in the west and is a symbol of the federal government’s presence in small, growing communities like Melfort, which is about 100 kilometres north of Humboldt and east of Prince Albert.