In June, when Chris and I visited southern Saskatchewan, we stumbled upon an interesting old building in a small town. It looked like it had once been a service shop or dealership of some sort. When we peeked in through the windows we could see parts bins and catalogues and similar stuff in the front part of the building.
We headed over to the local post office and explained to the clerk what we were doing. That we were photographers documenting historical stuff. We asked if she knew who owned the building, and if he might let us inside. She responded that the owner was a gentleman named Al, and that he farmed just outside of town. She graciously provided us with his phone number.
We contacted Al and explained again what we were doing, and asked if it might be possible to tour the interior of the building. He agreed, and we arranged to meet him there a couple of days later.
When we arrived at the agreed time, we found an elderly gentleman there, trying to unlock the door. Introductions were made and he told us he hadn't actually been in the building for about ten years. It was in fact a former Massey Ferguson Dealership that had been operated by his father, and shut down in the mid 1980's.
Al explained that his key was turning in the lock, but that the latch was not releasing. He pointed to the door and told me to "Kick it right here". I refused, and we explained that as much as we would like to see the interior, we were not going to damage his property. He insisted that he wanted me to kick the door, but I continued to refuse. So we moved over to an adjacent boarded up window.
We didn't have the right size screw driver to remove the plywood that covered the window. So Al called over to his farm, and had his hired hand run down with a cordless drill and the correct driver bit. The young farmhand crawled in through the window, and then opened the large rolling door at the back of the shop. We went inside and began our exploration.
It was spectacular, and it looked as though it had been untouched since Al's dad retired about 40 years prior. There were still a few old tools and supplies in the back shop. Up in the front there were still parts in many of the bins, even including bigger stuff like bias ply tires and mufflers. We told Al that he had a goldmine of vintage parts here and that he should look into trying to sell them. He didn't seem very technologically savvy, and had little to no interest in doing anything on the internet. Perhaps someone will help him out with this.
Al and his young farm hand watched us for a few minutes, and were only mildly interested when I dug out my big camera. They quickly got bored with what we were doing, but obviously we posed no threat. They told us to spend as much time as we wanted, and close the place up when we left.
We spent a couple hours and took a bunch of photographs. We were able to roll the back door shut and have the latch drop behind us, when we left. Then we placed the plywood back into place over the broken window. We called Al and thanked him for his cooperation, and let him know that we closed things back up. We told him that he should send his hand back over there to screw the plywood back into place.
Sadly, the place will probably not survive for much longer. The roof was in poor condition and had been leaking badly. The cash drawer of till at the front counter was full of water. I think Al viewed it as more of a liability, then something of historic significance. Out of respect for private property I will not post any images of the exterior of the building, nor provide any specifics as to where it is. But we are very thankful for having had the opportunity to document it.
I recently processed a batch of Ilford HP5 film in 510 Pyro Developer. This included the four images that I shot with my view camera at the dealership. I will be posting them all here on my blog over the coming days, starting with this one of the workbench in the back shop.
