Renovations at a southwest business led to a shocking discovery in the historic building's basement, an anomalous wall, complete with windows and a door, holding secrets of the past that have yet to be uncovered.
The Broken Spoke in Maple Creek not only houses a wide range of local artworks but also a fascinating wall encompassing several bricked-up windows and a bricked-up door.
Blaine Filthaut, owner of the Broken Spoke Fine Art Gallery, shared that despite making the discovery a few years ago, he and his wife have yet to figure out the strange area's purpose.
"We had work that we had been doing to the building, and one of the jobs was repairing and repointing our basement back wall," said Filthaut. "So when we took everything away from the wall to do the work, we realized that there were four bricked-in windows and a bricked-in door in the basement.
"There was a loose brick, and there were definitely hollow sections behind our wall, and we're not sure what that all entails."
The building was moved to its current location on Jasper Street in Maple Creek around 1922, appearing on fire plans that were drafted in the years following the end of Prohibition.
"The interesting part is that the first tenants recorded in the building were the Saskatchewan Government Liquor Association," he said.
Anyone with knowledge about the bricked-up wall and its past purposes can reach out to Filthaut at (306) 661 - 8425.
"We haven't finished doing our research, all of the Maple Creek newspaper archives are maintained at the Esplanade in Medicine Hat," he added. "There's a lot of story that we don't know about our own area."
