19th century mill in western P.E.I. to be saved

Leard's Grist Mill, which operated in western P.E.I. from 1888 to 2002, will be saved, the Canadian Potato Museum has announced.

The building, in Coleman near O'Leary, was donated to the museum a few years ago, but it was struggling to find the money to rescue the historic building, which was at risk of falling into the adjacent stream.

• Volunteers fundraise to save Leard's Grist Mill from collapse

The museum has previously announced it would have to tear down the building, but has now found it is just about as easy to save it.

We were also looking at a fairly large cost to tear that building down.- Bill MacKendrick

"What really changed the tune of everything was it was going to cost a lot of money just to stabilize the building in order to take the artifacts out," said museum chair Bill MacKendrick.

"A lot of the artifacts are contributing to the holding the building up as well. So it really wasn't safe unless the building had been stabilized. And we were also looking at a fairly large cost to tear that building down and properly dispose of it."

A construction company has been hired to stabilize the structure. Organizers have raised more than $100,000 for the work, which is set to begin mid-December.

Leard's Mill is the last surviving historic grist mill on the Island. There were once more than 100.

There will also be a feasibility study done over the next few months to figure out what other work can be done on the building once it is stable.

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