Today the courthouse building is used as the main building for the
Nippon Institute of Technology (NIT) Canadian Campus. It’s operated as a school for Japanese students who come from their junior or senior high schools and universities in Japan.
In 2013, when the building was in need of a touchup, the Alberta Government supplied a portion of the required funds to the school for the renovations. The story was reported on by the
Prairie Post, a partner of the Alta Newspaper Group Limited, on Monday, October 14, 2013, which is reproduced in part below.
Former Blairmore courthouse
gets makeover
The Alberta Historical Resources Foundation has been handing out many grants to communities with historical buildings that are in need of restoration and conservation.
The Blairmore Courthouse is a designated provincial historic site and therefore has to meet many requirements from the standpoint of upkeep.
“Because it’s a designated historic site, we are also eligible for some funding through the province, which is usually matching funding and particularly when it’s for and only for restoration types of activities,” explains Phil Cann, the director at the Nippon Institute of Technology (NIT) Canadian Campus.
Cann adds they are receiving funding from the province to re-shingle the roof of the courthouse, which is cedar shingles.
Currently, the courthouse building is used as the main building for the NIT campus. It’s operated as a school for Japanese students who come from their junior or senior high schools and universities in Japan.
“We have a full-time program year-round with our partner Lethbridge College,” says Cann. “A lot of our programs that we offer here are formerly Lethbridge College programs.”...
The courthouse was built in 1923 and was the first of its kind in Alberta to house police facilities, barracks as well as court facilities and jail facilities. It was built to maintain law and order in the region’s mining communities.
The total cost to re-shingle the roof will be around $50,000, says Cann. They are receiving project funding of $20,720 from the province. The remainder of the money will come directly from the NIT foundation’s head office based out of Tokyo.
Cann says they have been unable to secure a contractor for the project making them a little behind on when they were hoping to start the conservation project. The original goal was to start and finish the re-shingling in the summer and it would take at least three weeks to complete.
Date of completion will depend on who they can get and when they can start on the difficult project.
From the Prairie Post