Grace Gospel Hall

Description of the Historic Place

Grace Gospel Hall is a one storey building in the neighbourhood of Caswell Hill. Built in 1919, the former church is located on a corner site at 120 25th Street West.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of Grace Gospel Hall lies in its association with Grace Fletcher, a prominent business woman, church leader, women’s rights advocate and a strong temperance activist. Born in Ontario in 1850, Fletcher along with her husband Joseph and their three children, moved to Saskatoon to homestead in the 1880s. The Fletcher’s established a general store, a livery stable and a land agency. 

In 1890, the railway built a link to Saskatoon, and for the next three years Grace Fletcher and other dealers bought up buffalo bones that littered the prairies. These were shipped over the Old Bone Trail to Saskatoon, from where Fletcher sold railway carloads of them to the United States for manufacturing. Saskatoon’s first industry is said to have been the export of buffalo bones for the manufacturing of fertilizer, with Grace Fletcher being the city’s first industrialist. By 1905 Saskatoon's population had grown to over 3,000 and Fletcher had made enough money from her business ventures to start buying real estate.

Along with her work in the church, she was committed to the temperance movement. She joined the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and was an advocate for women's rights and voting rights for women. In 1905 she and several other Saskatoon women presented a petition to the town council asking that it urge the government to grant the right to vote to women who owned property.  After 1910 women campaigned successfully for the vote, which was granted in 1916.

The heritage value of Grace Gospel Hall also lies in its religious associations as a gospel church and more recently as a Islamic Association Centre, which contained a mosque as well as an Arabic language school. Today, Grace Gospel Hall is used as a residence. The building however continues to be a landmark to the residents of Caswell Hill.

Source: City of Saskatoon Built Heritage Database

Character Defining Elements

Key elements which contribute to the heritage value of this historic resource include:

• Its unique architecture, with old south influences, evident in: its front wall pilasters and modillions; and
• Those elements that speak to its status as a religious and neighbourhood landmark, including its orientation on its original lot and location along 25th Street West.