Built in 1914, the George Owen Wholesale Liquor Store stands directly across Washington from its original location, which was erected in 1897. Along with the relocation came a change in name, from Steen & Company Wholesale Liquors. The original building still stands, part of a group of five historic buildings, four of which came to be in the 19th century.
This building exhibits a hint of Italianate styling, with a pair of oriel windows on the second floor façade and a modillioned and bracketed cornice. A full width shed style portico protects the ground level, supported by four turned wooden posts. A pair of recessed entries afford access to the ground floor business and to the second floor.
In the early '30s, when the liquor store was no more, the building became the Rossland Meat Market below. Still later, it became professional offices at street level and an apartment upstairs. While the upstairs remains an apartment, the lower level is today the home of
Cafe Books, offering an extensive variety of books including fiction, personal development, travel & adventures, current affairs, sustainability, biographies as well as a great selection of young adults and children’s books. It's also a great place to enjoy a delicious coffee while looking for your favorite book.
George Owen Wholesale Liquors
This building was built in 1914 by George Owen on land that was originally used for a livery business. The liquor store moved to this building from a previous location on Washington Street. It was built in the Edwardian Commercial style with some Victorian elements. It did good business as a liquor store as demand was high in this booming mining town. In the 1930s it became a butcher store, Rossland Meat Market and was subsequently used for insurance and doctor's offices as well as residential apartments. Today the commercial space houses a bookstore with a three bedroom apartment above.
From the Historical Marker at the Building
George Owen Wholesale Liquors
Description of Historic Place
The George Owen Wholesale Liquors building is a two storey, wood-framed commercial building with a false-front appearance located on Washington Street in the historic downtown of Rossland, B.C. It has two bay windows on the upper storey, two street entrances and a verandah with support columns at street level, which extends over the sidewalk.
Heritage Value
The George Owen Wholesale Liquors building is recognized for its historic, social, and aesthetic values to the community of Rossland.
The heritage site is a surviving second-generation commercial building that reflects the early evolution of Rossland at the beginning of the twentieth century. Constructed in 1914 by George Owen on the former site of the Rossland-Trail Livery Company's stables, the heritage site demonstrates how Rossland was growing and changing from a mining camp to a modern city at that time.
Its heritage value lies in the varied commercial and residential uses it has hosted throughout its history. The building's first use as the location of George Owen's wholesale liquor store speaks to the pre-World War I identity of Rossland, which was still connected to its boomtown mining roots, and the supply-and-demand nature of the burgeoning frontier city. Its later use and ownership by German immigrant Herman Knabe, proprietor of the Rossland Meat Market in the early 1930s, reflects Rossland's cultural diversity. The heritage site was subsequently purchased by James Alexander Wright, a butcher by trade, and James Stuart Daly, a medical doctor, and used for several purposes (such as professional offices at street level and an apartment upstairs) between 1936 and 1969. The heritage site reflects the real estate speculation and long-term ownership that was common amongst many of Rossland's deeply-rooted and well-established citizens during the middle of the twentieth century. Its full use as residential units while under the ownership of Albert and Gladys M. Heier into the 1980s, speaks to the evolving economic realities of the city, specifically eras when commercial ventures in a downtown building would have been less viable than residential uses. Its return to its original mixed-used commercial and residential function in the late twentieth-century is reflective of the ever-changing and cyclical nature of Rossland's economy, which gives the community its strong boomtown identity.
The heritage site is also valued for its aesthetic that in recent decades has re-embraced heritage-inspired Victorian elements of the boom town aesthetic, as a response to a downtown restoration wave initiated in the 1980s, which has helped to rebrand Rossland as a historic town and a cultural tourism destination.
Character-Defining Elements
The elements that define the character of the George Owen Wholesale Liquors building include its:
- Original location on Washington Street in Rossland historic downtown core
- Continuous commercial use since 1914 and residential use since the 1930s
- Commercial siting of the building right at the property line, with no setback from the sidewalk
- "False-front" appearance of the building, with an extended, decorative parapet
- Two-storey form, with a tall cornice space above the second storey windows
- Commercial storefront at street level, with a door to the upstairs apartment at the northern end of the front facade
- Wood-frame construction
- Elements of its original 1914 design, including two windows on the upper storey, commercial storefront at street level, and entrances and windows in its rear facade facing the alley behind
From Historic Places Canada