Description du lieu patrimonial

Hunter Brothers Store is a single storey, brick building on the northwest corner of Columbia Avenue and Washington Street in downtown Rossland, B. C. It is a large building with a 60' frontage on Columbia Avenue and it extends up Washington Street for 115'. There are a number of exterior entrances to the different shops in the building and related signage is painted on the various shop windows. A canopy extends across the front of the building and over the exterior entrances on Columbia Avenue.

Valeur patrimoniale

The Hunter Brothers Store has historic and social value for its brick construction, its continuous use as a retail store and its connection to early development in Rossland.

Built in 1907, the Hunter Brothers Store is one of two brick commercial buildings built during this early period of development in Rossland that still exist today. It has historic and social value for its connection to a city by-law requiring brick construction, adopted shortly after the disastrous fire of August 1902 that destroyed all the many commercial wooden buildings on the first block of Spokane Street.

This store is the second edition of a Hunter Brothers Store - the first built in 1895 on Columbia Avenue but on the south side and further west - likewise a commodious building which included importing, wholesaling and retail business. Hunter Brothers Ltd., the original occupants of the building, served the community's needs for many years as a mercantile (department) store, with groceries, clothing and hardware. The T. Eaton Co. continued this traditional use of the store for a short while after it purchased the store in 1959. Since the early 1960s, Hunter Brothers Store was a grocery store for many years and then a hardware store.

This building has the largest single retail space of any store ever built in Rossland. The interior space has recently been divided into separate retail spaces with their own street access on Columbia and Washington.

SOURCE: City of Rossland - Heritage Commission

Éléments caractéristiques

The character-defining elements of the Hunter Brothers Store include its:
- Location and footprint
- Dental detailing below roof line
- Brick construction material
- Heritage Plaque beside the front entrance identifies this building as an important heritage building in Rossland