Prairie Skyline Foundation

In 2008, the Foundation defined its Mission further:

Rediscover
Redevelop, and
Revitalize Historic Crookston and Northwestern Minnesota
By Developing Best Uses including Housing and the Arts

Skyline Preservation Foundation, Inc. name was changed to Prairie Skyline Foundation to reflect the broader mission that includes housing and the arts.

When the Diocese of Crookston built a new Catholic Cathedral in 1991, the Care and Share Homeless Shelter bought the former rectory and land to expand their services to the homeless. The empty former Cathedral was included even though Care and Share had no use for it. Not wanting to lose the Tiffany style Stained Glass windows to vandalism, they sold them. (link to the Story of the Lost Stained Glass) People always want to know about this gothic beauty with or without its stained glass. In 1996, Jennifer Peterson founded the Skyline Preservation Foundation, Inc., a non-profit, public charity to purchase the three-spired church. The former board researched the history and applied to be on the National Historic Register, which it is today. They fought a long legal case to be free from property taxes as an undeveloped building. They endured loss of leadership, loss of a grant-writer, and struggled to keep the building up with small fundraisers and their own funds. Yet the building still stands as a tribute to the strength and courage of that early French Catholic leadership and the steeples and freshly painted 10 feet tall crosses stand as a symbol of immigrant times, when battles were simpler.

In May of 2002, new Board members brought a fresh look at the situation in Crookston, a City with a National Historic Commercial District in which 10 of the 14 buildings were for sale and or vacant at that time. A long-range strategy was developed that was broader in scope to include the blight and disrepair of historic buildings in Crookston and the surrounding area. The new strategy can be summed up in the Skyline’s mission: To Rediscover, Redevelop, and Revitalize Historic Crookston. In our efforts to save historic buildings, we have worked to find the best use for them. Long waiting lists for low-income apartments and the condition of those apartments in Crookston, have caused the Foundation to move toward developing housing that is affordable, attractive, and is located in historic buildings. A brief surveys and the opening of the “Cathedral Gallery and Store” were pre-feasibility activities to determine if Crookston could be a Center for the Arts in Northwestern Minnesota.

Goals: Our short term goals are to rehab an existing downtown apartment building called the Union building, which is in the tax forfeiture process into permanent supportive housing. We will be opening the new thrift store in the former Crookston Paint and Glass Building which will accessed through Kay’s Attic and Thrift Store. Our long range goal is to use these cash flow from this project to help in the development and reuse of other vacant historical buildings in Crookston.