By Katie Ryan
All it took was a suggestion and a piece of Lloydminster’s history is now both preserved and on display.
Tuesday afternoon marked Streetscapes’ grand opening of the Railway Border Marker Park, which features a replica of the Border City’s first border marker.
Local resident Gene Ewanowich approached the city and suggested the old railway border marker, located at the corner of 50 Avenue and 52 Street be restored. And in fact, Ewanowich offered to restore it himself.
“It’s not in the garbage dump. We salvaged it,” laughed Ewanowich following the ceremony.
“That’s about all it means to me because it’s still here and they can have 20 other border makers in Lloydminster but this is still the old, original one, so why destroy it? That’s what’s important to me.”
“Gene was just getting off the train when he ran into the post on his way into the downtown – that’s significant,” said senior director of corporate affairs Tom Lysyk.
“The trigger was when Gene came along that day and said to me, ‘I’ll fix up that post, that marker. It’s been there forever, it was there when I was young. It’s old.’ The rest of it rolled out from there.”
Streetscapes and the city teamed up to not only to spruce up the corner, but also to preserve a part of the community’s history.
“We did acquire this land ultimately through the Co-op when the bulk station moved and we traded part of the land for some unpaid taxes of the CN tenant that disappeared. We had enough land to do something here by the tracks,” said Lysyk.
Along with his daughter and Signs by Gene employees, Ewanowich constructed and donated the steel replication of the original wooden sign, which will now be retired to the Barr Colony Heritage Cultural Centre.
“It had been here for a lot of years and I was impressed by it when I first saw it as an eight-year-old, which was a few years back,” Ewanowich said. “You should always put back into your community.”
Streetscapes chairman, Rob Anderson said the new park provides an improved “gateway” to the downtown core.
“Before this was a waste space, now we’ve got a green area,” he said, adding the park is the second project Streetscapes has undertaken in the last five years. 
“The development of this park was a way for Streetscapes and the city to clean up this corner number one, but also make a more pleasing entrance to the north end of the downtown. At the same time it provides a way for us to recognize the special part the railway  has played in the development of Canada as a nation and the subsequent growth and development here in Western Canada.”
Financial support and flower barrels for the project were provided by Streetscapes, while concrete work, landscaping and ongoing maintenance will be provided by the city.