Heritage Agricultural Society ( RED BRICK COMMON )

The Heritage Agricultural Society operates as the Red Brick Common, formerly known as the Multicultural Heritage Centre. The Red Brick Common has been preserving and promoting the history and culture of Stony Plain and the surrounding area for over 50 years. We provide unique historical spaces for authentic experiences celebrating our heritage, agriculture, and our communities. We champion food, culture, and our diverse communities.

Our four core values are:
• Collaborative Partnership
• Creative Education
• Innovative Leadership
• Community Focus

The centre boasts a living museum that reflects the local agricultural history of Stony Plain, western Canadian pioneer life and a public art gallery promoting local artists as well as artists from all over Alberta and Canada. We seek to engage local residents, businesses, governments, community organizations and visitors as we record, promote and celebrate local culture, the agricultural heritage, regional cultural roots, and history of the Town of Stony Plain, the City of Spruce Grove, and Parkland County.

Alongside the 1925 red brick schoolhouse stands the Oppertshauser House, built in 1910 by Henry Oppertshauser Sr. a local Stony Plain businessman and civic leader. This prominent family owned three local businesses that helped root a community here. The Oppertshauser House is a municipal historic resource, which interprets and focuses on the urban aspect of our local heritage in the setting of a well-established pioneer Stony Plain family.
With so much rich cultural background and potential, the Heritage Agricultural Society has turned the Oppertshauser into a living museum for residents and people from all over the world to experience and enjoy. The Oppertshauser house hosts our museum collection from 1890 to 1930s and reflects what a home would have looked like 100 years ago.

Heritage tourism is often rooted in historic buildings. These powerful, tangible connections to our past are the ways in which people today come in touch with the past. Heritage buildings are also increasingly important venues linking a new generation with the older one and thus, as places to be used for education and citizenship. Revitalizing old buildings fosters community cohesion as the volunteer activity that often goes into maintaining and promoting heritage buildings-is recognized as a valuable way to keep people, especially youth and seniors, active and involved in their community.

For a community there is also an economic benefit as heritage preservation contributes to cultural and economic well-being by drawing tourism which helps local businesses attract customers this increases property value.

Some of our events and programs include
• Public art gallery
• Settler’s cabin
• Archives and Wild Rose Library
• Living museum collection
• School programs
• Art classes
• Children’s camps
• Variety of workshops
• Organic Master Gardening Certificate Program
• Community garden
• PERC gym and classroom rentals
• Wedding rentals of amphitheatre, grounds, art gallery, and Oppertshauser house
• Red Brick Vintage store
• Red Brick Farms jams, jellies, preserves, syrups, mixers, pickled produce, sourced from our organically grown gardens/grounds
• Special summer events including Open Farm Days and Alberta Culture Days, with Oppertshauser house tours, and horse and wagon mural tours
• Vendor markets including “Seedy Saturday”, “Old-Fashioned Christmas”
• Ghost tours