The Downtown Rossland Neighbourhood encompasses both sides of six blocks of Columbia Avenue, Rossland's "Main Street", from the 1600 block in the west to the 2300 block in the east. The first commercial structures to appear along Columbia Avenue were erected in the early 1890s, shortly after newly established gold mining properties began to ship ore down the mountain to the Columbia River. By 1896 the neighbourhood was filled with one, two and three storey retail buildings, office buildings, hotels and rooming houses. The first banks also opened Rossland branches at about this time.
The neighbourhood experienced its first major fire in 1902, followed by two more major fires in 1927 and 1929, each destroying much of Rossland's downtown. The last one, in 1929, burned the entire north side of the 2000 block, only the masonry Bank of Montreal, at the east end, and the stone Post Office, at the west end, surviving. The Bank of Montreal was relatively untouched, while the Post Office was gutted and its third storey so badly damaged that it was removed, leaving it thereafter a two storey building. Finally, a bylaw was passed, requiring all new construction to be "fireproof".
In spite of these setbacks, both Rossland, and the Downtown Rossland Neighbourhood, thrived, as the gold, then copper, mines at the upper end of the town proved immensely rich and profitable. Today, Rossland has managed to salvage a large number of its turn of the century buildings, most of which are along Columbia Avenue and within the Downtown Rossland Neighbourhood.
Downtown Rossland Neighbourhood
Description of Historic Place
Downtown Rossland in Rossland, BC spans the width of Columbia Avenue from Cliff Street to Monte Christo Street. It is made up of the buildings on the north side and south sides of Columbia Avenue. It is a combination of commercial, institutional and residential buildings built from the early 1890's to postwar.
Heritage Value
Downtown Rossland has historic value for its dense clustering of buildings reflecting the town's gold mining era. Many of the historical buildings are valued survivors of two devastating fires and a weakening mining economy in the late 1920s. Columbia Avenue represents not only these early buildings, but also buildings from pre-World War II, wartime and postwar era. These later buildings are important markers of Rossland's continuing invigoration over the decades since its mining heyday.
The downtown area, currently represented by several blocks of Columbia Avenue, is important not only for its built heritage resources, but for its streetscape, street trees, public open spaces and public art. Views to the surrounding mountains strongly situate Downtown in its spectacular alpine setting.
Downtown Rossland is important for its still-intact small lot pattern of development that supports small businesses and contributes to a diverse and local commercial life, fostering a sense that Downtown is the city's social centre.
Character-Defining Elements
Character-defining elements may be found in its:
- Dense cluster of commercial and mixed-use buildings without side yards.
- Flat-roofed or rectangular false-fronted buildings from the gold mining era.
- Relatively level grading Columbia Avenue in the core area.
- Wartime and postwar institutional buildings and structures (including swimming pool).
- Zero setback from the front property line.
- Historic commercial buildings (named in the Heritage Register), with traditional detailing of ground floor commercial storefronts, punched hole window openings on floors above, and simple wood or brick ornamentation, particularly at the cornice.
- View west to the mountains
From Historic Places Canada