viii
                           (1926) SASKATCHEWAN'S PUBLIC WORKS
         
	When the province of Saskatchewan was inaugurated on
September 1,1905, it possessed no public buildings of any kind,
and even the government itself was homeless and carrying on its
business in rented offices. The provision of buildings adequate to
the needs of the people of the new province was one of the most
important problems with which the government had to deal. In
spite of the enormous expansion of population which has taken
place during the last twenty-one years, there being today more
than three times the people in Saskatchewan as there were in
1905, and although the demand for proper facilities has been
extremely urgent and hard to overtake, the difficulties, courage-
ously faced, have now been almost altogether overcome, and the
province at the present time has a chain of public buildings of
which we may be proud, and which are undoubtedly worth many
times the amount which they originally cost.
         
	In the year 1905 one of the first expenditures of the new
Department of Public Works was the purchase from the Dominion
Government of eleven public buildings and the jail properties at
Regina and Prince Albert, for which the sum paid was $231,475.
With these as a nucleus, year by year the number of buildings
was added to. At the end of the fiscal year of 1915-16, there
had been expended on buildings and grounds chargeable to
capital account, the sum of $6,257,859.57, and of this much the
greater portion had been spent on three buildings, namely the
Parliament Buildings, which is of course the department's master-
piece, the Hospital for the Insane at North Battleford, and the
University Buildings. At the end of the fiscal year of 192~26,
the province had spent in buildings and grounds, on capital
account, the sum of $18,521,649.05, and now possesses a total of
80 buildings in all, composed of Government House, the Parliament
Buildings, a Provincial Office Building, two Normal Schools, the
Home for the Infirm at Wolseley, twelve Courthouses, two combi-
nation Courthouse and Land Titles Offices, seven Land Titles
Offices, two Jails, one Liquor Consmssion Warehouse, one
Materials Warehouse, two Mental Hospitals, two Sanitaria, the
old Government Buildings, the Boys' Detention Home and the
University Buildings, with forty Provincial Police Quarters.
         
	In former years before the erection of the Highways Com-
mission and subsequently the Department of Highways, all the




   ix
                            SASKATCHEWAN'S PUBLIC WORKS-continued
         
work now being done by the Department of Highways was done
by the Department of Public Works, and up to the year 1912
three~fourths of its annual expenditures were spent in bridge
building and road work. At the present time, however, the pro-
vision of new buildings from time to time and the maintenance
and repair of the many buildings already in hand necessitates
large appropriations each year and a large staff is also required to
administer them.  During last year, for instance, the amount
spent from capital account appropriation on account of permanent
buildings and the property on which they stand, on furniture and
equipment acquired, was $657,897.70, while in the same period
there was spent for the general maintenance of public buildings
and institutions an amount of $1,191,146.02, which amount
included sustenance and clothing of almost 1,900 inmates confined
in the various institutions.
         
	Aside from the control of the various public buildings and
the branch of the Provincial Architect in which all provincial
buildings are now designed, there are three other branches of the
department, the Institutional Farms branch which controls the
agricultural operations on a number of large farms attached to the
two jails and the two mental hospitals; the Steam Boilers Branch
which has to do with the inspection of all steam boilers and the
icensing of operators; and the Administrator of Lunatics' Estates
branch, which looks after the interests of patients confined in the
Mental Hospitals at North Battleford and Weyburn.
         
	The Department of Public Works is one of the largest farmers
in the province, controlling 5,390 acres of farm lands attached to
various institutions. Many prizes at different exhibitions have
been carried off by the Institutional Farms, both in grains and
live stock.
         
	The Steam Boilers Branch during the past year carried out
2,889 inspections of steam boilers and air tanks, examined 1,678
engineers and examined, approved and registered 54 designs of
boilers and fittings.
         
	The Administrator of Estates of the Mentally Incompetent
looked after 452 estates during the year with a total property
value of estates of $1,028,762, with a total acreage under culti-
vation of 18,356.
         
         
          

This coming of age Souvenir contains an Offical Map
of the Highways System of the Province (prepared by
the Saskatchewan Department of Highways) and some
interesting information about the progress of the
Province since its formation twenty-one years ago.
Issued by the Department of Highways

1926