Prairie Skyline Foundation

Sash windows are a precious part of our built heritage that makes the places we work and live special and last over 100 years!

How the Movie "Cars" is about Preservation and Restoration by Wood Window Makeover.com on Friday, November 26, 2010 at 9:01pm Sometimes inspiration comes when you aren't looking. My Mom and Grandmother were here from Texas for Thanksgiving Day and once the festivities ended we put on a movie - The Disney/Pixar now classic Cars. My mom had never seen it, my boys love it and I just think it contains a great message.    So this time as I watched it for probably the 100th time - I saw something new. If you've seen it you know the theme.  A hot shot race car named Lightning McQueen gets lost on his way to the other side of the country and finds new friends that change his perspective and give him a new take on life - a better take. He starts off self absorbed but discovers that relationships mean more than winning a race. Another theme though is the restoration and preservation of what is lost through progress. Lightning finds his way to an almost for...

Now we will never know if the Wayne/Palace Hotel's supporting walls were structurally sound.  In the above floor plan of the fourth floor, areas shown in red are the wooden structures that let light in to all three floors.  These are not made like the exterior walls  that are six bricks thick. Now we will never know if some falling brick on the south side meant do some masonry repair, or loss of structural integrity. Now we will never know if Metro Plains would have been successful if they had tried a third time with the new state historic tax credits and/or different funding sources. Why?   Because Polk County turned down an offer of a free structural assessment from a structural engineer from the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota. When we drive by on US Highways 2 and 75 and look at that ugly corner, let's remember: What if the County had replace the roof and cleaned out the building, and put up a for sale sign 10 years ago? What if the County had...

The Prairie Skyline Foundation and Preservation Alliance of Minnesota (PAM) were disappointed to learn last Thursday that Judge Michael Kraker denied their request for a temporary injunction to halt demolition of the historic Palace/Wayne Hotel in Crookston. Prairie Skyline and PAM had filed suit against the City of Crookston, Polk County, and the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board (EQB) as a last-ditch effort to save the endangered building, which anchors Crookston’s commercial historic district. The building is a contributing structure to a designated historic district; under the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act, an Environmental Assessment Worksheet (EAW) is mandatory for such properties before they can be demolished in whole or in part. In June, the City and County requested and received an “emergency waiver” from the EQB, allowing them to avoid the preparation of an EAW. An EAW would have required public consideration of alternatives to demolition. In his decision, Jud...

A person walks pass some of the murals painted at a closed building along Dexter Avenue in downtown Montgomery, Ala., on Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. (Montgomery Advertiser, Lloyd Gallman) Downtown revitalization must include historic preservation, expert says By Jill Nolin • October 11, 2010 age Downtown revitalization was once talked about because it wasn't happen­ing. Now, it's being talked about because it's actually taking hold in Montgomery. Montgomery's success, to date, in re­vitalizing its downtown is a major focus of the annual Alabama Preservation Conference that started Thursday and ended Saturday. Some of the sessions have offered analysis and commentary on what steps led up to the rebirth that sparked on the riverfront and is starting to push into the rest of the downtown area. "I tell you, you are doing the right things in Montgomery, Alabama. It's not there yet, but it's never there," said Don­ovan Rypkema, who is an inte...

Letter to polk county View more documents from CrookstonKate .

Response to august 26 city letter View more documents from CrookstonKate . free hit counters  

08 28-10 letter to kay hegge.docx View more documents from CrookstonKate .

Here is the letter we wrote to the City Council regarding saving the Wayne Letter to board members and city council members letter View more documents from CrookstonKate . free hit counters

This is the original home of Felix Fournet, who built the outstanding Fournet Block (Four Seasons Clothing, Munn's Jewelry, etc.  He was a builder of the highest quality and he built his home on Houston Avenue.  I've been inside when it was owned by Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell and the woodwork has remained untouched and is beyond belief stunning. 

You just never know when history comes alive!  I was delighted to meet the Rigg's family as they toured historic Crookston searching for sites their great grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, the City Bandmaster before T.W. Thorson took over, may have performed in.  Be sure to check out their great blog at http://bit.ly/9mNco2. It is full of pictures and information and SONGS played by G. Oliver Riggs.  Watch this blog for song lyrics sung at the old Winter Shows Building, the former Crookston Armory.  Who knows, perhaps G. Oliver performed on that stage as well. Former owner, Arnold Lahd, removed the eagle emblem from the stage for safekeeping.  Did you know the original Winter Shows consisted of three buildings?  Yes, the former Crookston Armory is just one, the current Crookston School Bus garages are the others.   Anyone who knows more about the great Winter Shows and our former great Crookston band master, G. Oliver Rigss, please comment! fr...

We looked for the best use of the three-story Union Building and found housing with services (also called “permanent supportive housing”) to be not only much needed in Crookston, but a chance to help people.  In order to apply for grants, the project had to have a name.  We called it “KT Apartments” after Kari Thompson who passed away the year I started working on the project.  When completed the project will contain 11 units for the very low income, (single parents, students, min. wage job workers), 5 of which will be designated for the “long-term homeless” as defined by HUD, (folks who have struggled with homelessness more than a few times.)   This 1.2 million project doesn't interest the large developers and is too big for small developers.  Only a non-profit could do this project.   The goal is to rehab the three-story brick walk-up building. It is located at 111 W Robert Street in the historic commercial district of Crookston registered with th...

Before my post on the Union Building Project, I must ask, Does anyone know why the building's name was changed from the International Order of Odd Fellows to the Union building?

Every now and then, we need to check our points of reference. Prairie Skyline's point of reference for the rehab of the Wayne (Palace) Hotel project is the Taralseth Building in Warren Minnesota. A similar building to the Palace, it didn't even have a roof when the community took another look at their downtown after the 1997 Flood and decided to save it. Please empty your mind of your mental picture of the run-down Palace Hotel and replace it with a vision of the restored Taraseth Building which has on its main floor a large community center, something we need here in Crookston.

After Crookston Paint & Glass had occupied the building for 60 years, and the elderly owner, Edith Krohn, passed away, the building was vacant and listed for sale. Estimates on the sagging east wall of the basement were gathered for the Realtor. They ranged from $6,000 to over $30,000. The heir to the estate decided to donate the building to the Prairie Skyline Foundation, Inc. in Jan 07. The board worked on a proposal to the Minnesota Historical Society and in July of 08 was awarded a grant of $6,000 to be matched by local donations and labor to brace the wall to prevent it from caving in. Our contractor, Ron Geray, started building a new plate for the bracing when the bowed wall caved. Luckily, we had put in a new beam before the cave-in, saving the entire east wall. Work halted while we figured out what to do next as $6,000 wasn’t going to be enough to do the entire project now. Then, the building inspector required us to get an engineer’s drawing of the new bracing...

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Eyewashes prepared by Brian Carlson, JLG Architects, Grand Forks, ND When the Diocese of Crookston built a new Catholic Cathedral in 1991, the Care and Share Homeless Shelter bought the former rectory, and land to expand their services to the homeless. The empty former Cathedral was included even though Care and Share had no use for it. Not wanting to lose the Tiffany style Stained Glass windows to vandalism, they sold some of them. See the complete story of the stripping of the former Cathedral on prairieskyline.com. In 1996, Jennifer Peterson founded the Skyline Preservation Foundation, Inc., a non-profit, public charity to purchase the three-spired church. The former board researched the history and applied to be on the National Historic Register, which it is today. They fought a long legal case to be free from property taxes as an undeveloped building. They endured loss of leadership, loss of a grant-writer, and struggled to keep the building up with small fundraiser...

“Benedictine sisters began their work in the area that is now the Crookston diocese in 1899, when Mother Scholastica Kerst of Duluth opened St. Anthony’s Hospital over a store in Bemidji . In 1900 she arrived in Crookston to assess the need for a hospital in this lumbering center. After some study she opened Riverside Hospital in a frame building on Pine Street west of the Great Northern Railroad, on the bank of the Red Lake River . The first medical insurance in the state was sold to lumbermen for $2.00 a year. In 1902 the sisters purchased land on Seventh Street and there built St. Vincent ’s Hospital.” (The Benedictine) In 1901 the Diocese of Crookston was created from dividing the Diocese of Duluth. The Benedictine sisters from Duluth started and staffed many schools and two hospitals. In 1919 Bishop Timothy Corbett asked the Mother Eustacia Beyenka to come to Crookston with sister companions to establish a new priory. “ St. Vincent ’s Hospital served as ...

Watch for your postcard in the mail! We are sending out a SPRING FUNDRAISING POSTCARD ONLY to those that support the Arts, History, and Theatre. Because after all, what is Architecture but artistic, historical and drama? When you get your postcard, check your favorite project or projects, enclose just $20 and the card and return to us within 7 days for your FREE COPY of our first newsletter since 2007, (yes, we've been that busy!) containing great historical articles and lots of pictures. Remember this is your chance to "vote" on your favorite project by checking the appropriate box or boxes on the card. We want your money to go directly to where YOU WANT IT TO GO! 1. Right now, we need funds to hire "Artspace" to do an Working Arts Center Feasibility Study on the former Cathedral on Ash Street. An earlier pre-study revealed over 100 active visual artists in NW Minnesota who would LOVE to display and sell their art in such a "jewel on the prairie...