Description of Historic Place

The Old Bank Building is a Municipal Heritage Property occupying one civic lot near the centre of the Town of Dundurn, at 400-2nd Street. The property features a white, two-storey, wood-frame building that was constructed in 1906.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of The Old Bank Building resides in the integral role it played in the early financial and economic development of Dundurn. It was built in 1906 as a branch of the Northern Bank, the first chartered bank based in western Canada. Successive mergers saw it become a Northern Crown Bank branch in 1908, then a branch of the Royal Bank of Canada from 1918 to 1935. For the next two decades, until 1957, it served as the town Post Office, thus continuing as a centre of economic life in the community.

Heritage value also resides in the building's architecture, which represents a basic design that was often seen in western Canadian frontier bank branches in the early 1900s. Characteristic features include the two-storey, rectangular, wood-frame construction, with a flat roof, large lower-front windows, and projecting cornices on both floors. An exterior wooden staircase leads up to the second floor, where a succession of bank managers and their families once resided. The exterior colours—white with the dramatic deep-blue trim characteristic of Royal Bank buildings—help to make the building stand out among the surrounding structures, representing the early years of growth and success in the community. Constructed with a basement, built-in steel bank vault, and galvanized iron roof, the building also features two small, oval windows on the front of its upper storey that serve as decorative elements. Occupying a corner lot on one of Dundurn's main streets, the building’s distinctive appearance, harking back to frontier financial institutions, continues today to serve as a landmark in the community.

Source:

Town of Dundurn Bylaw No. 4/81.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of The Old Bank Building resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those elements that reflect its role as a centre of local financial and economic life, including the Northern Crown Bank signage, the Royal Bank blue trim, and the built-in steel vault;
-those architectural elements that are characteristic of western Canadian frontier banks of the early 1900s, including the wood-frame construction and overall massing of the two-storey, rectangular structure, the flat roof, large lower-front windows, exterior wooden staircase leading to the second floor, decorative columns on corners, and projecting cornices on both floors;
-decorative elements, such as the building’s white exterior and the small oval, blue-trimmed windows on the front of the upper storey;
-the building's location on its original site near the centre of the town.