This station was built in 1916 by the Edmonton, Dunvegan & British Columbia Railway in their efforts to be the first railroad into the area, with the first train chugging into the station in August of that year. To be more specific, it was built by two Peace River men – Harry Edward Weaver and George Ellis (Bud) Devore.
Later several smaller railways were amalgamated into the Northern Alberta Railway, which operated the station until its closing for passenger service in 1956. Freight service continued until 1981, when the station was closed permanently. The nearby bridge over the Peace River was completed in November of 1918.
The building, after suffering a nearly disastrous fire in 1986, was restored by local rail historians and enthusiasts and was later reopened as the Peace River & District Chamber of Commerce and Peace River Tourist Information Centre.
Peace River N.A.R. Station
Description of Historic Place
The Peace River Northern Alberta Railway (N.A.R.) Station is an early twentieth-century, wood-frame building situated on a single block north of Peace River's central business district. It consists of a one-and-a-half storey passenger and operations building with an attached one-storey freight shed, each with bell-cast roofs.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Peace River N.A.R. Station lies in its association with the construction of railway lines in northern Alberta during the 1910s, and in the high integrity and modern day rarity of its architectural design.
The transportation network in northern Alberta developed rapidly between 1912 and 1916. Eager to open the northern reaches of the province to settlement and commerce, the Government of Alberta incorporated three railway companies to provide rail service in the Peace Country. In 1916, one of these companies, the Central Canada Railway Corporation (C.C.R.C.), completed a line connecting Peace River Crossing with the Edmonton Dunvegan and British Columbia railway at McLennan. The Peace River railway station was built in the same year to serve this line.
The arrival of the railway in Peace River marked the final link joining the Peace Country to Edmonton and the national rail network. The Peace River N.A.R. Station was the entry point for thousands of settlers into northern Alberta and connected them to another vital transportation system, the riverboats that carried people and commerce up and down the big river. During the 1920s, this newly-developed network spurred the growth of agricultural settlement and economic development in Alberta's north.
The Peace River station exemplifies the simple, utilitarian architecture common to so many railway buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Based on a standard design used throughout Alberta, the station includes a warehouse for freight, a waiting room for passengers, office space, and living quarters for the station agent. It is one of the few one-and-a-half storey railway stations remaining in Alberta and is a rare and remarkably well-preserved building from of the era of railway expansion in Alberta's north during the 1910s. Its historical legacy and architectural integrity make the station a significant landmark in the Peace Country.
Character-Defining Elements
The character-defining elements of the Peace River N.A.R. Station include such features as:
- form, scale and symmetrical massing;
- extended bell-cast roof with cross gables and chimney;
- wide eaves and eave brackets;
- all-wooden exterior finishing, including the shingles on the roof and drop siding on the walls;
- fenestration pattern and style, including the six-over-one single-hung sash windows with same pattern storm windows, the four-over-one sashes and storm windows on both sides of the northeast bay, and the 10-pane fixed windows on the southeast elevation of the freight shed;
- bay windows on the conductor's office;
- exterior door patterns, style and locations;
- re-created ladder hanging on the southeast elevation;
- re-created wooden platform around the building;
- largely restored floor plan layout on the main level;
- wood floors, wainscotings, and original interior doors; and
- unfinished wood flooring in the freight shed.
From the Alberta Register of Historic Places