Heritage Inventory Final Report

Transcription

ƇTown of PonokaƇ Heritage Inventory
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TOWN OF PONOKA
MUNICIPAL HERITAGE
INVENTORY
ƇPrepared by Judy Larmour,
Heritage ConsultantƇ 2010Ƈ
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ƇJudy Larmour, Heritage Consultant, 2010Ƈ
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ƇAcknowledgements
The Town of Ponoka gratefully acknowledges the Government of Alberta’s support for
participation in the Historic Resources Management Branch’s Municipal Heritage
Partnership Program, and the preparation of its Municipal Heritage Inventory.
Judy Larmour would like to thank the Town of Ponoka, and the Ponoka Museum and
Heritage Board for their collaboration on this project.
The Ponoka Museum and Heritage Board:
Barb Greshner
Marnie Wilkins
Councillor Drew Dougherty
Councillor Jack Surbey
Councillor Jerry Siemens
Brad Watson, CAO
Thank you to Val Somerville, Town of Ponoka, for her careful attention to detail and
assistance throughout the project, and also to Sandy Allsopp at Fort Ostell Museum, for
her help in locating and scanning historic photographs and in seeking out information.
Thank you to everyone who expressed interest in the project and gave of their time
discussing individual heritage buildings and Ponoka’s history.
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Table of Contents
Part I
………………………………………………………………1
Ƈ Overview of Project ……………………………………………………2
Ƈ Project Methodology……………………………………………………6
Ƈ Stakeholders: Partnerships and Publicity………………………………8
Ƈ List of sites for inclusion on Inventory…………………………………10
ƇRecommendations to Ponoka Town Administration and Town Council..12
Ƈ Draft Statements of Significance ………………………………………14
Part II…………………………………………………………………….65
Ƈ Evaluation of Significance and Integrity………………………………66
Ƈ Photo-documentation & Preliminary Condition Assessment…………104
Ƈ Places Of Interest List ………………………………………………...137
Ƈ Context Paper…………………………………………………………145
Ƈ Appendix………………………………………………………………181
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TOWN OF PONOKA
MUNICIPAL HERITAGE
INVENTORY - PART I
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Part I
ŶJudy Larmour Heritage Consultant
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Ƈ Overview of Project
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Ƈ Overview
Background
The Town of Ponoka received funding in summer 2009 from Alberta’s Municipal
Heritage Partnership Program (MHPP). The purpose of MHPP is to assist Alberta’s
municipalities in the identification, evaluation and management of their heritage
resources. MHPP supports municipal preservation of historic resources through the
designation process, and listing on Alberta’s Register of Historic Places and Canada’s
Register of Historic Places.
Ponoka’s highly successful participation in Alberta’s Main Street Program from 19952000, which was aimed at the revitalization of Ponoka’s downtown, formed a
springboard for the current undertaking. The Main Street Project’s results included the
rehabilitation of 26 buildings, a walking tour, and a series of interpretive plaques, as well
a groundswell of enthusiasm and awareness of Ponoka’s heritage.
Seeking to build on the achievements and pride associated with the Main Street Program,
the Ponoka Museum and Heritage Board drew up a preliminary Places of Interest List
(POIL). This is a list of buildings/sites considered to be potential candidates for
municipal designation. This was the starting point for the current Municipal Heritage
Inventory project. Heritage consultant Judy Larmour then worked with the Board to
select a short list of 18 sites to be documented, researched and evaluated—according to
provincial standards and criteria—for placement on a Municipal Heritage Inventory.
A Heritage Inventory serves to:
¾ heighten awareness and appreciation of heritage buildings/sites
¾ identify the most significant heritage buildings
¾ evaluate the buildings to determine why they are significant, and list those
physical features or character defining elements, that remain to communicate
significance
¾ to indicate what about the building/site should be protected and conserved
¾ form the basis for a municipal designation program to protect buildings through a
bylaw
¾ ensure that those buildings that are considered for municipal designation status
are eligible to be placed on the Alberta Register of Historic places and would
therefore be eligible for conservation funding through the Alberta Historical
Resources Foundation.
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Objectives of Inventory Project
¾ to undertake detailed photo-documentation and research on 18 sites from Places
of Interest List
¾ to provide a contextual history to form a framework within which the
buildings/sites can be understood and evaluated.
¾ to evaluate those sites according to the standards applied to the Municipal
Heritage Partnership Program
¾ to prepare “designation ready” draft statements of significance
¾ to provide documentation of the evaluation process
¾ to provide the mandatory documentation required for nomination to the Alberta
Register of Historic Places for each site on the inventory, should it receive
designation status.
The Evaluation of Significance and Integrity
The provincial criteria of significance that pertain to Ponoka’s heritage resources
(building or site) are as follows. A resource may be significant for one or more of the
following:
A. Theme/Activity/Cultural practice/Event.
What theme, activity, cultural practice or event is identified with the resource, and what
is its historical context?
B. Institution /Person
What is the role of the person, or institution, associated with the resource in the context of
the history of the municipality? What other resources are associated with that
person/institution and how?
C. Style/Construction
What is the historical context of the building form, architectural style, engineering
techniques, material, method of construction, or local development area, associated with
this resource?
D. Information Potential
What research topic could this resource and its physical materials potentially address?
E. Landmark/Symbolic value
How did the resource acquire its land mark or symbolic value?
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An “SoS” explains why a historic place is important. It contains a first, Description of
Place indicating where the site is and what it is; second, its Heritage Value, which
indicates why it is significant, and how, as it exists today, the site exhibits those values;
and third, its CharacterͲDefining Elements, a list of elements that if removed, the heritage
value of the site would be compromised.
In order to be eligible for municipal designation the building must also have sufficient
integrity to communicate its significance. The aspects of integrity to be considered are:
location; design, environment, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.
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Ƈ Project Methodology
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Ƈ Project Methodology
x
Review of the Places of Interest List (POIL) identified by the committee
x
Photo-documentation of sites using digital camera for detailed recording of
elevations and features
x
Documentation of preliminary condition
x
Recording of GPS coordinates for each site
x
Photo-documentation using black and white film for Alberta Heritage Survey
forms
x
Recommendation of additional sites for POIL
x
Compilation of short list of 18 sites from POIL for evaluation
x
Research of documentary sources
x
Meeting with owners/renters to do visual inspection of interior as applicable
x
Evaluation of sites against provincial criteria of significance
x
Assessment of integrity of sites
x
Review of restoration program undertaken by Main Street Project as applied to
individual buildings
x
Drafting of statements of significance for 16 sites
x
Review of statements of significance with historical committee
x
Arrangement for local newspaper coverage of project.
x
Presentation of draft statements of significance at Open House
x
Integration of additional information/feedback
x
Drafting of context paper for review
x
Prepare final recommendations for Town of Ponoka re management of inventory
and instigating a designation program
x
Presentation of final report and electronic file with basic mandatory
documentation for each site on the inventory pending designation.
Ƈ Stakeholders, Partnerships and Publicity
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Ƈ Stakeholders, Partnerships and Publicity
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x
The town informed all building owners that the inventory was underway in
September 2009, explaining the MHPP program and the purpose and process of
undertaking a heritage inventory.
x
The consultant met with most building owners or renters as applicable to
document the building, to do a preliminary assessment of condition, and to build
awareness and understanding of the heritage inventory, its purposes, to explain
what a statement of significance is, and outline its relationship to the municipal
designation process, and provide basic information about provincial funding and
advisory services for conservation of Municipal Historic Resources.
x
The consultant met regularly with the Ponoka Museum and Heritage Board in
June, September, October, November, December, and January through March
2010.
x
The local newspaper, the Ponoka News and Advertiser ran an article on the
project in January 2010, based on extensive interview with consultant and took
photographs to include. (See appendix)
x
An open house was held on March 3, 2010 in the new Tourist Information Centre
to present large scale versions of preliminary draft statements of significance
mounted on boards, accompanied by feedback sheets, to building owners,
stakeholders and the interested public. It was attended by the Ponoka Museum
and Heritage Board, town councillors, representatives of the Fort Ostell Museum,
a number of engaged building owners, the newspaper editor, and members of the
public.
x
The Ponoka News and Advertiser ran an article about the open house on March
10, 2010. (See appendix)
Ƈ List of sites for inclusion on Inventory
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Ƈ List of sites for inclusion on Inventory
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1. F.E. Algar Building (5020 50 Street)
2. Ponoka Community Rest Room (5014 51 Avenue)
3. The Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building (5006 50 Avenue)
4. The Sweet Block (5027 50Avenue)
5. Ponoka Brick School (5004 54 Street)
6. Allen’s Furniture Store (5006 Railway Street)
7. The Safeway Store/Cash Foods (5026 50 Avenue)
8. Thirsk 5c to $1 Store (5019 50 Avenue)
9. The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building (5012 50 Avenue)
10. Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building ( 5039 49 Avenue)
11. The Leland Hotel (5009 50Avenue)
12. Capitol Theatre (4904 50 Avenue)
13. T.J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building (5012 50 Avenue)
14. Ponoka Herald Building (5010 51Avenue)
15. Ponoka Meat Market Building (5005 51 Avenue)
16. Canadian Pacific Railway Dam on Battle River
ƇRecommendations to Ponoka Town Administration and Town Council
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ƇRecommendations to Ponoka Town Administration and Town Council
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The Ponoka Museum and Heritage Board has approved the listing of 16 sites on
Ponoka’s Heritage Inventory and forwards this report and its findings for adoption
by Town Council.
The inventory lists 16 sites; of these, numbers 1-15 are recommended for designation
as a Municipal Historic Resource. Number16, the CPR Dam, is of heritage
significance, but the actual location of the structure in the river bed, lies outside the
town’s jurisdiction and therefore cannot be designated as a Municipal Historic Resource.
The Ponoka Museum and Heritage Board suggests following steps to continue the
groundwork laid by this project to pursue the preservation and protection of Ponoka’s
heritage buildings.
¾ Initiate discussion about municipal designation and its benefits with building/site
owners, beginning with those who have already expressed interest, to build
understanding and cooperation for the program.
¾ Set up the administrative framework with appropriate procedures for instigating a
municipal designation program in accordance with the Alberta Historic Resources
Act.
¾ Integrate the inventory as a management tool in town data bases and planning
documents whereby any proposed intervention that would affect the building/site
would be automatically flagged.
¾ Make the statements of significance for each building available to the public at
the Town Office and Fort Ostell Museum.
¾ Support initiatives undertaken by the Fort Ostell Museum to build on the research
and information arising from the inventory project to foster awareness of heritage
buildings, and continue an oral history project initiated under this project.
¾ Investigate with MHPP staff from the Historical Resources Management Branch
at Alberta Culture and Community Spirit, how the new Main Street Program
might tie into Ponoka’s Municipal Designation Program and funding for
designated buildings.
¾ Plan to undertake a Phase Two Inventory Project to assess residential and other
non-commercial historic properties in Ponoka.
Ƈ Draft Statements of Significance
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Draft Statement of Significance
F.E. Algar Building (5020 50 Street)
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Statement of Integrity
The F.E. Algar Building retains an exceptionally high level of integrity. In particular its
prominent corner lot location and distinctive brick masonry construction and design with
two principal facades incorporating primary and secondary store fronts conveys the
feeling of pre World War I commercial retail architecture and its association with the
entrepreneurship of the Algar family. The retention of its original design elements, such
as brick parapets, metal cornices and transom windows, and traditional building
materials, evidence of sophisticated workmanship, all contribute to its status as a
landmark heritage property. As the centre piece of the Ponoka Main Street Project in
1996-1997, it is a visual anchor for the surrounding streetscape that demonstrates the
viability of maintaining and preserving historic buildings and is a focus for community
identity and pride.
Description of Historic Place
The F.E. Algar Building, constructed in 1914, is a rectangular plan single storey flat
roofed brick masonry building with high parapet walls finished with a metal cornice,
which stands on the southeast corner of a 51 Avenue and 50 (Railway) Street. It occupies
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single long narrow lot (that also contains the small wood frame Ponoka Meat Market on
its north-west corner) with a north-south alley running behind. The east elevation of the
F.E. Algar Building has a classic commercial retail store front with a recessed entrance
flanked by large display windows, transom windows with a metal cornice above and a
retractable awning below. A secondary store front located on the north-west corner of the
north elevation has a similar design with a single display window and recessed entrance.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the F.E. Algar Building lies in its historical association with
Charles Duncan Algar, pioneer settler and first post master in Ponoka, and his son
Frederick Edward Algar, with whom he opened the first store in Ponoka, known as
Siding 14, in 1895 shortly after the completion of the Calgary and Edmonton railway and
the survey of the townsite into lots. The F.E. Algar Building is significant for its ability to
demonstrate the development of commercial retail activity in the town. Its construction in
1914 on the site of two earlier Algar stores lost to fire, marks the adoption of more fire
proof building materials in Alberta’s fledgling towns in an effort to avoid huge financial
loss and the endangering of life. As a general store the F. E.Algar Building offered a wide
range of goods, including groceries, fresh fruit and other produce, dry goods, clothes,
footwear, china, household fixtures, photography equipment, toys, and served the mixed
farming districts around Ponoka. A drug store operated in the rear section of the F. E.
Algar Building. The Algar family played a prominent role in the development of the town
and the F. E. Algar Building remained in family hands, although leased to Abe
Aboussafy who operated general store from 1944, the first of several subsequent retail
operations that have continued to the present day.
The F.E. Algar Building is also valued as a prominent landmark in Ponoka and as the
centre piece of the Ponoka Main Street project 1996-1999; and is a visual anchor that
demonstrates the viability of maintaining and preserving heritage buildings fostering
community identity and pride.
The architectural significance of the F.E. Algar Building lies in its sophisticated
exemplification of classically inspired design and workmanship commercial brick
masonry in pre-world war I Ponoka. Its shape dictated by its long and narrow lot, the
symmetrical design of the main façade was intended to maximize its retail function and
incorporated large store front windows resting on bulkheads to display goods to
advantage. It features a central recessed doorway flanked by supporting metal columns,
surmounted by a broad transom window with mullions, and a retractable awning to
provide summer shade over the sidewalk for customers. The inclusion of parapet walls
with painted pressed metal cornices on the principal east and north facades lends the
north-east elevation a distinctive and atypical wrap-around presence on this corner lot
that is further emphasised by elements such as the brick voussoirs on the semi-circular
window openings on the north wall. On the north-west corner a secondary store front
entrance with recessed entrance below a transom window and flanked by a single pane
window resting on a bulkhead, closely mirrors the main façade and reinforces the
continuity of design. The well-lit interior, which featured lathe and plaster walls with
finishing features including a high ceiling clad with pressed tin, mouldings, and millwork
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elements, was designed as main open space. In the south-west of the building interior,
there is a distinct rear retail section accessed from the street, with a raised business office
area accessed by a stairway and lit by a skylight, along with an associated fur storage
vault that indicates the range of business activities the F. E. Algar building housed.
Character defining elements
The key elements that define the heritage value of this site include:
Exterior:
-scale and massing, including its narrow rectangular footprint
-flat roof sloping to the rear
-brick masonry walls on the east and north facades
-parapet walls (stepped on the north elevation) with metal cornices
-patterns of fenestration and openings
-symmetrical arrangement of primary store front
-central recessed entrance with concrete steps flanked by metal support columns
-single pane display windows
-wood bulk heads with inset panels
-three bay transom window with translucent glass with mullions
-metal cornice
-retractable awning over primary store front
-single pane display window on north-east corner of north elevation, complete with
transom window with mullions and resting on wood bulkhead
- two high semi-circular window openings complete with brick voussoirs on wall of north
elevation
- brick voussoirs on basement window openings north elevation
-arrangement of secondary store front on north-west corner of north elevation
-recessed entrance with concrete steps
-single pane display window
-wood bulk head with panel insets
-two-bay transom window with mullions
-metal cornice
Interior:
-interior spatial configuration comprising a main open space, rear section with steps up
from street and a small raised office accessed by stairway in north-west corner, complete
with skylight and fur storage vault
-lathe and plaster walls
-high pressed tin ceiling and ceiling mouldings throughout
-original millwork and fir store front display platforms
Period of Significance: 1914-present.
Ponoka Community Rest Room (5014 51 Avenue)
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Ponoka Community Rest Room retains a high level of integrity. Its prominent streetscape
location, original commercial style design features and appearance of the main façade,
have been retained and suggest an intended permanency. The preservation of its
relatively rare cast-stone facade, reflecting a typical trend in the replacement of earlier
generation of buildings with structures built with fire proof construction materials, and
evidence of sound workmanship, contributes to its architectural significance and conveys
a distinctive feeling and aesthetic to the building.
Ponoka Community Rest Room, constructed in 1929, is located at 5014 on a prominent
50 foot wide lot on the north side of 51 Avenue. The building is a flat-roofed rectangular
two-storey masonry structure constructed from cement blocks that resemble cut stone. Its
atypical commercial style design features a principal façade with three store front type
windows at street level, each flanked by a doorway, while the upper storey has four
residential scale windows.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of Ponoka Community Rest Room, built in 1929 by the Ponoka
Community Rest Room Association registered in 1925 under the Societies Act of 1924,
lies in its provision of a social service for farm women travelling in from country districts
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with small children who needed washroom facilities and somewhere warm to rest, feed
babies, use the telephone, and wait while their husbands conducted farm business, or to
use as a base from which to shop. As a replacement for an earlier restroom in small
wood frame building established on the same lot in 1920, its construction illustrated the
importance of its function and highlights the Association’s strategies of organization and
entrepreneurship through fund raising to accomplish their goals. Its longevity of
operation demonstrated the consistent need to provide a venue with a social comfort level
for country women in an agricultural service centre such as Ponoka.
The Ponoka Community Rest Room also has a significant connection with the Ponoka
Stampede, first held in 1920 with the explicit purpose of raising funds for the first rest
room. The continuing wide support of the town’s businessmen for the project was
symbolized by Walter Gee, garage owner, who allowed the Association to use the
stepped east wall of his premises, with an almost identical façade on the lot immediately
west, as a party wall. Gee donated the proceeds from a dance to mark the opening of his
garage to the Association for their building fund. When contractors Jas. Caine and R. A
Sorensen completed the building for $4,832, it opened on November 30, 1929, with a
formal tea. The Ponoka Community Rest Room signified the cooperation between town
and country until it closed in 1992.
The Ponoka Community Restroom is valued for its relationship to generations of farm
women in the Ponoka area, marked by a long roll call of local women who served as
President or Directors of each district group that contributed to the Association. It is also
significant for its association with a number of local women’s organizations of the early
20th century, including the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE) who
used the premises for their meetings for a period of time and managed its small library
that eventually formed the basis of the collection in the Ponoka Jubilee Public Library
constructed in 1956. The upper floor Ponoka Community Restroom was divided into
suites to meet a pressing demand for accommodation for women, and professionals
including doctors had offices on the east side of the ground floor through the decades.
The architectural significance of the Ponoka Community Rest Room lies primarily in its
cast stone construction. The use of brick or cement was required by 1929 as the new
building was located within the zone that prescribed fire proof construction materials.
Cast stone concrete blocks produced by large manufacturing plants, local suppliers, or
made in molds available through catalogues for home manufacture, were a popular and
cost effective substitute for sandstone in the early decades of the 20th century. Used most
often for steps, lintels, sills, and ornamental masonry details, extant buildings clad with or
wholly constructed in cast stone are relatively rare and the Ponoka Community Rest
Room provides the last remaining example of its use in the town.
The design for the two-storey flat roofed cast stone structure on a cast-in-place concrete
foundation features three store front windows and doorways at street level with four
residential scale windows on the upper floor that mirrored typical arrangements on
commercial buildings of the time. The upper and lower stories were divided by a wide
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belt course of contrasting aggregate concrete stucco, also used on sills and lintels and for
the finish on the parapet cap, lending the building a distinctive appearance.
-scale and massing, including its shallow rectangular footprint across two lots
-flat roof covered with bituminous material
-parapet flashed with sheet metal on three facades
-original stepped west party wall
-patterns and size of fenestration and openings on north and south facades
-window design on lower floor of main facade, featuring one large lower pane with a
horizontal band of six vertical transom lights above
-exposed cast stone contoured concrete blocks on the south and north facades
-use of aggregate concrete, on wide belt course dividing the upper and lower stories, on
sills and lintels, and as finish on parapet cap
-cast-in-place concrete foundation
-original door on west side of main façade
-ventilation grill on principal façade
-red brick chimney
Period of Significance: 1929-1992
The Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building (50006 50 Avenue)
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The Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building retains an exceptionally high level of integrity. In
particular its prominent location and distinctive brick masonry construction and design
with a principal facade incorporating a primary store front entrance, secondary entrances,
and ghost signs, conveys the feeling of pre World War I commercial retail architecture
and indicates its historical association with Sidney Bird, long time Ponoka pharmacist.
The retention of its original design elements, such as pilasters, bracketed metal cornice
with decorative finials, prism transom windows, traditional building materials, and
evidence of sound workmanship, all contribute to its status as a landmark heritage
property that contributes to the physical and visual continuity of 50 Avenue in Ponoka’s
heritage commercial core.
The Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building, constructed in 1918, is a rectangular plan twostorey flat roofed red brick masonry building featuring a distinctive projecting metal
cornice with decorative finials on the west and east ends. On its original location facing
south at 5006 50 Avenue, it occupies a half-lot that has a north-south alley running along
its west elevation. The Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building has a distinctive sign band that
divides the upper and lower stories and its asymmetrical principal facade has a three bay
primary store front with a recessed entrance and tall display windows and an additional
bay comprising a display window and two door ways.
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Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building lies in its historical
association with Sidney Bird pharmacist and property owner in Ponoka, who first opened
a drug store in Ponoka in 1910, and then took over the Campbell Drug Store in 1916.
Bird’s of a new store construction in 1918 and subsequent interior renovations and a
brick masonry addition on the east side in 1929, marked the expansion of his business
and the growing prosperity of the town through the 1920s. The Bird Drug Company Ltd.
Building with its original painted signage is significant for its ability to convey its
association with the pharmacy business in Ponoka. The core medical function of the Bird
Drug Company Ltd Building was amplified from 1923 when Bird offered a tooth pulling
service in competition with dentist Dr. Budd, but in 1929 he leased office space to the
first of a succession of dentists in the east end of the upper storey of the addition accessed
from a separate street level entrance.
Closely associated with Sidney Bird’s second drug store in town, the Ponoka Pharmacy,
which he acquired soon after it opened in 1929, The Bird Drug Company Ltd Building
provided storage space for goods for both pharmacies. The histories of the two buildings
remained entwined until 1947 when Bird’s twenty-one year employee, Garnet Ranks,
bought the Ponoka Pharmacy and Bird sold the Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building to
McDermid Drugs of Edmonton. When Herb Johnston purchased the Bird Drug Company
Ltd. Building in 1950, his retention of the Bird Drug Company Ltd. name and sign
marked its value as a local business and landmark during its last decade as a functioning
drug store until Johnston moved location in 1959.
For over four decades the Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building offered a wide range of
retail goods including pharmaceutical pills and portions, toiletries, beauty preparations,
photography equipment, phonographs, stationery, books, pens, chocolates, and at
Christmas the transformation of the upper storey into a magical Toyland was cherished
by generations of Ponoka children.
The Bird Drug Company Ltd Building is architecturally significant as a fine
representation of sophisticated design and workmanship in commercial brick masonry in
Ponoka. Its rectangular shape maximizes its imposing retail presence through tall store
front display windows, resting on wood bulk heads and surmounted by two-light transom
windows to give light to the interior. The design of the main façade is asymmetrical,
incorporating a three bay primary store front, separated and supported by two cast iron
columns beneath the beam that supports the upper floor, and an additional bay
comprising a display window and two door ways built in 1929 to match the existing
building in the materials and design of the openings. Design elements such as the broad
sign band separating the upper and lower stories, the projecting pressed metal bracketed
cornice and decorative finials, brick parapet walls, brick voussoirs on the arched
segmented window openings, further emphasise the distinctive streetscape presence of
the Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building. The original steel hardware for the retractable
awning that was installed in 1919 to provide shade to the primary store front is retained.
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-scale and massing, including its broad rectangular footprint
-flat built up roof
-brick masonry construction featuring stretcher bond as a finishing brick on the principal
façade and common bond elsewhere
-brick parapet walls
-brick chimney
-concrete foundation
-painted signs on three elevations
-painted pressed metal cornice with concave brackets and decorative finials at the west
and east ends
-patterns and style of fenestration and openings
-brick voussoirs on arched segmented window openings and cast stone concrete sills on
upper storey, north and south facades
-asymmetrical arrangement of primary façade
-primary store front separated into three bays separated and supported by two cast
iron columns; wood trim, quarter round mouldings, and exterior ceiling on
recessed entrance; single pane display windows with a several inch reveal
between the surface of the brick façade resting on wood bulk heads with panel
insets; two-light vertical transom windows with prism glass
-additional bay with display window and two doors built in 1929, to match the
existing materials and design of the openings including brick voussoirs on
segmented arched door opening and display window with two-light vertical
transom window
-metal exterior covering for structural beam that supports the upper floor
-original steel hardware for a retractable awning over primary store front
Period of Significance: 1918-1959.
The Sweet Block (5027 50Avenue)
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The Sweet Block has a strong degree of overall integrity that clearly portrays its heritage
value. Its streetscape location and the retention of design elements such as stucco finish
featuring horizontal streamlines, distinctive curved recessed entryways, are among the
features that convey the feeling of early Moderne architecture, and is marked by evidence
of excellent workmanship, all contributing to its status as a landmark heritage property.
The Sweet Block constructed in 1937, is a rectangular plan two-storey flat roofed brick
masonry structure located at 5027 50 Avenue in Ponoka’s commercial core. Its principal
façade has elements of streamline Moderne architecture, including a stucco finish
featuring horizontal stream lines, distinctive curved recessed entryways and large
commercial store front display windows. A distinctive breezeway is located along the
west elevation giving access to the alley at the rear.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Sweet Block lies in its historical association with the Sweet
family, and a succession of businesses types on its lower storey along with commercial
space, offices, and residential rental suites on the upper storey, that together characterizes
its typical commercial block mixed-use function. It demonstrates the economic recovery
from the depression years in Ponoka as Don Sweet and his wife Ella, who owned the
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building next door, decided to expand their commercial business in a new building. The
Sweets lived in the sophisticated multi-roomed residential suite with separate entrances
at the rear of the new Sweet Block, which was internally connected with the space on the
west side where Mrs. Sweet continued her beauty parlour service, accessed by clients
from the main street entrance.
The commercial space at the front of the building was renovated to suit consecutive
businesses which occupied the premises, beginning with Krefting and Severson’s Ponoka
Electric. The importance of the new Sweet Building was demonstrated in its ability to
attract new businesses to town and by June 1938 Silvatone Studios, offered “everything
photographic” on the upper storey. In 1939 the Sweet Block became home to the
Greyhound Bus terminal and the up-to date Terminal Café that featured a soda fountain
and could accommodate forty people. The Sweet Block is also valued for its association
with a series of long term Ponoka businesses including Harry Wright’s Ponoka News and
Advertiser established in 1949. Later Arthur East’s real estate, from 1956 to 1996 Jones’
Insurance Agency occupied the Sweet Block, whose changing mixed function continues
to the present.
The Sweet Block is significant as an early example of streamline Moderne architecture in
Ponoka. Designed by architect J. A. Buchannan of Edmonton, and constructed at a cost of
approximately $12,000, it measured 32 x 75 feet and was completed in fall 1937. Its
structural walls are constructed from hollow clay tiles with a veneer stretcher bond on
three elevations and features-brick voussoirs and sills on the window openings. Moderne
features are demonstrated in the principal façade with its stucco finish featuring
horizontal stream lines, distinctive curved recessed entryways and large commercial store
front display windows. The west entrance gives access to the upper storey reached by a
wide metal-edged straight staircase complete with original wood hand rails. The design
of the upper storey, its reverse L-shaped corridor with off-set entrances to eight original
suites, two at the front of the building and three on each side, continues the horizontal
stream lines in the pattern of the battleship linoleum and the painted plaster walls which
feature a thin line of colour that runs the length of the corridors to highlight the transition
from a dark base to light coloured walls. The spatial organization of the suites, which
include features such as built-in medicine cupboards, enamel sinks with taps reflecting
the installation of running water in Ponoka in 1948, represents upgraded apartment
design that was typical through the 1950s. On the ground floor the spacious residential
suite has large windows and French doors between the main rooms to give light and
features a brick fireplace.
The Sweet Block is also noteworthy for its ability to demonstrate heating and water
systems used prior to the availability of public utility services, through the now
decommissioned steam heating system that operated from an extant boiler in the
basement, for its high that emphasise the high ceilings, on three levels, and for the
breezeway on the west side of the building that gave access to businesses in the alley to
the south and to the residential suite’s entrances on the rear south elevation.
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Exterior:
-scale and massing, including its rectangular footprint
-brick construction
-hollow clay tile for structural walls
-stretcher bond for veneer finish on three elevations
-flat roof with drainage system through exterior walls
-pattern of fenestration on all four elevations
-brick voussoirs and sills on the window openings south, west and east elevations
-wood frame window surrounds
-stucco cladding on principal façade with subtle horizontal stream lines
-asymmetrical arrangement of store front
-curved recessed entranceways
-display window comprising four large panes
-original paired wood doors with single panes on west side
-door with wired single pane on east side
-red brick chimneys
-rear raised deck accessible from upper floor built into masonry on rear elevation
-basement entrance northwest corner
Interior:
Upper floor:
-ground level entrance hall and wide stair case to upper floor complete with wood
handrails and metal edged stairs
-battleship linoleum on stairs and corridors
-11 foot ceilings
-plastered outside interior walls
-spatial arrangement of central corridor with off set entrances to eight original suites
-vertical fire hose stand complete with hose in central corridor
-paint pattern complete with thin stream line
-original features of suites such as hard wood floors, wood doors and trim, original sinks,
built-in medicine cupboards
Lower floor:
-rear portion of the building comprising spatial arrangement of original apartment,
including two main rooms separated by French doors with multiple panes; kitchen area
with back door, bathroom, rear bedroom area, and area on west side connected to rear and
front of the building
-12 foot ceilings
-original large brick fire place with protruding wide chimney flue and wood mantle piece
-wood window and door frames and trim
-wood baseboards
-wood paneled doors complete with original door knobs
Basement:
-original coal-fired boiler
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-poured in-place concrete water cistern
-location of original upright supports or standards
-9 foot ceiling
Environment:
-breezeway running alongside the west elevation
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Ponoka Brick School (5004 54 Street)
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The Ponoka Brick School retains a high level of integrity. Its prominent location and
distinctive brick masonry construction conveys the feeling of permanence and solidity
associated with Collegiate Gothic style architecture in an-up-to-date structure displaying
Art Deco influences. The retention of all its original design elements, such as high
parapet walls with contrasting stucco trim on all four elevations, decorative brick courses,
projecting corner piers, numerous windows on both stories, and a central entrance with a
large Tudor arch window over entrance, and evidence of skilled workmanship all
contribute to its status as a landmark heritage property.
The Ponoka Brick School, constructed in 1929, is a large rectangular plan two-storey flatroofed solid brick masonry Collegiate Gothic style structure. Located at 5027 50 Avenue
west of Ponoka’s commercial core, it has high parapet walls with contrasting stucco trim
on all four elevations, decorative brick courses separated by brick pilasters, projecting
corner piers, banks of large windows on both stories, and a central entrance with a large
Tudor arch window over the original entrance.
Heritage Value
The historical significance of the Ponoka Brick School constructed in 1929 lies in its
association with the provision of education to the students of a rapidly expanded town,
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and the subsequent changes and developments in education and its administration though
the 1950s to the present. By 1922 the problem of overcrowding in Ponoka’s four roomed
school constructed in 1901, was becoming acute; as the number of pupils jumped from
285 in 1925 to 312 in 1928 prospective students could not be enrolled. In April 1928
school trustees purchased a 10 acre site. One of l15 schools with more than four rooms
built in 1929, Ponoka Brick School was the largest and most modern school constructed
on what the Department of Education termed “special plans” at the height of Alberta’s
interwar economic boom. Criticised at the time as unnecessarily big, it was soon filled to
capacity. By 1947 several junior high school grades had to be housed in temporary huts
on the school grounds. In 1949 the Ponoka Brick School and its increasing number of
satellite classrooms held 600 pupils, mirroring the situation of the 1920s. As
consolidation of schools began in 1952 and rural students were bussed to Ponoka, the
construction of additional school facilities followed, and the Brick School became the
elementary school and remains so to the present. Valued by generations of Ponokaites as
the place of their school days, the Ponoka Brick School is a cherished visual landmark on
its own spacious grounds and symbolizes thousands of personal associations of youthful
achievement, teachers, mentors and friendships.
The Ponoka Brick School is architecturally significant as an outstanding example of a
Collegiate Gothic school design, simplified and adapted to 1920s sensibilities and filtered
through an Art Deco lens, as embodied in its defined outlines, two-dimensional and
geometric elements. A variety of devices break up the broad surface of the walls,
including a variety of decorative brick patterns, high parapet walls with contrasting
coarse stucco trim to look like imitation stone, projecting corner piers with stucco caps
featuring incised lancet niches, brick pilasters, the symmetrical arrangement of numerous
large windows on both stories, and a central entrance with a large Tudor arch window
over entrance. It was constructed from brick on a full concrete basement, at a cost of
$65,000. The project was undertaken by Carlson Building Company of Edmonton
working from plans issued by the Department of Education. The Ponoka Brick School is
significant for its modernity throughout, with a convertible assembly room, a library,
principal’s office, 13 classrooms—each with one entire side of windows—and was
notable for its steam heat, electric light, its own water system and an electrically driven
ventilation system.
-flat built-up roof with a pipe drainage system through exterior north and south walls
-brick masonry construction
-high parapet walls
-decorative brick courses in a variety of patterns including basket weave, diaper
pattern, stretcher bond, soldier courses stack bond, in addition to English Garden
Wall bond
-brick pilasters
-stucco accents incorporated in the brick patterns
-projecting corner piers with stucco caps featuring incised lancet niches
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-stucco parged base on all elevations
-pattern of fenestration and openings on all elevations
-brick chimney on west elevation
-louvered vents on west elevation
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Allen’s Furniture Store (5006 Railway Street)
Allen’s Furniture Store retains sufficient integrity to portray its heritage value as an
example of early vernacular wood frame structures constructed in Ponoka at the turn of
the 20th Century. Its prominent location, imposing height and distinctive wood cornice
supported by brackets and wood siding on the upper storey of the principal façade
conveys the feeling of pioneer commercial retail architecture. The retention of its original
design elements, such as the wood cornice and double windows on the upper storey,
traditional building material, and evidence of practical workmanship, all contribute to its
status as a landmark heritage property.
Allen’s Furniture Store, constructed in 1903, is a rectangular plan, two-storey, wood
frame building with a low pitch shed roof, wood parapet walls on the south elevation and
finished with a distinctive wood cornice on the principle façade. It stands on its original
location facing east at 5006 Railway Street, on a long narrow lot with a north-south alley
running behind, and is flanked by low modern buildings on either side. The principal
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facade of Allen’s Furniture Building has an asymmetrical commercial store front with a
wide recessed entrance flanked by large display windows.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of Allen’s Furniture Store lies in its historical association with R. K.
Allen, a founding father of the town, who came to the fledgling settlement of Ponoka in
1900 and opened a hardware business in a one and one-half storey wood frame building
on Lot 4 Block 3 on Railway Street. Allen’s decision to construct this new building in
1903 on Lot 3 to sell furniture signified the expediential growth of Ponoka and the
expansion of commerce. The two buildings shared a party wall and were operated as a
joint business, and, from 1910, when Allen put an additional half storey on the hardware
store, the two buildings had matching frontage and were known as Allen’s Hardware and
Furniture. When Allen sold out in 1915, Allen’s Furniture Store went to his employee
Griff Latimer and the hardware business went to Wyman and Small. Allen returned to
Ponoka and repurchased the hardware store in 1923, but Allen’s Furniture Store remained
in other hands, having been purchased by Sutton and Nelson in 1922, the year it was clad
with metal siding. Allen’s Furniture Store retained its original function through the
subsequent proprietorship of R.P. Cline followed by Wilkins and Drummond from 1944,
and other proprietors until 1987.
Allen’s Furniture Store Allen’s Furniture Store is significant as a rare example of
vernacular wood frame construction architecture that characterized Ponoka at the turn of
the 20th Century. Its rectangular footprint, determined by its long narrow lot, and high
parapet walls were intended to maximize its retail presence on Railway Street. It features
a distinctive upper storey on the principal façade that is clad with horizontal wood siding
and capped by a wood cornice supported by a series of concave wood brackets. Three
double-hung single sash windows are set above a band of vertical tongue and groove
panelling that distinguishes the upper storey from the lower. The asymmetrical
arrangement of the recessed entrance way and location of the display windows mirror the
original pattern of openings and fenestration on the lower storey, and the single parapet
wall on the south side of the building signifies the original sharing of a party wall with
the now demolished Allen’s Hardware Store on the lot to the north.
Exterior:
-flat roof
-wood frame construction
-parapet walls on the south elevation
-wood cornice supported by a series of concave brackets
-wood trim including fascia, soffit, window surrounds and corner boards
-patterns of fenestration
- three double-hung single sash windows on the upper storey
-horizontal wood siding on the upper storey of the main facade
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-the band of vertical tongue and groove panelling that delineates the upper storey from
the lower
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The Safeway Store/Cash Foods (5026 50Avenue)
The Safeway Store/Cash Foods retains sufficient integrity to portray its heritage value. Its
streetscape location and distinctive store front convey the modernism inherent in
Safeway’s signature retail architecture. The retention of original chain store design
elements, such as the company’s characteristic faux pan tile roof, brick pilasters capped
by a cross gable decorative finial with matching faux pan tile, exterior lights; traditional
building material; and evidence of sound workmanship, all contribute to its status as a
landmark heritage property.
The Safeway Store/Cash Foods constructed in 1929, is a rectangular plan single-storey
brick masonry structure located on one town lot at 50264 50 Avenue in Ponoka’s
commercial core. It is one of a number of red brick buildings that maintain the historic
streetscape. Its principal façade features an asymmetrical commercial store front with a
large display window with four panes set on a base of ceramic tile, and is characterised
by a distinctive russet coloured painted faux pan tile roof flanked by brick pilasters
capped by a decorative finial.
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Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Safeway Store/Cash Foods lies in its historical association with
the international Safeway Company based in California and its bid to enter the Alberta
market in the late 1920s, with the slogan “Distribution without Waste.” Safeway opened
in Ponoka in early 1930 with a vigorous advertising campaign in the Ponoka Herald as it
worked hard to make inroads among the local shoppers emphasising quality and
convenience, low prices and excellent service, and immediately promising free delivery,
alongside promotional feature sales that urged buying in bulk. Serve-your-self epitomized
shopping the modern way—the urbane and independent way that encouraged women to
discover bargains and gather suggestions for meals, helped along by Safeway’s weekly
recipe cards.
The Safeway Store/Cash Foods represents the intense competition that marked the
grocery trade in Ponoka through the 1930s in a period of economic downturn. By the
mid-1930s there were a large number of grocery stores in town, including long term
businesses such as F. E. Algar’s general store, Thompson’s, and Brody’s, as well as
Scotts’ and Lee’s, along side the UFA Co-operative Store, and Jenkins Grocteria, a
Calgary-based company that had grown out of the first cash and carry business
established in Alberta during World War I. While the long term businesses retained loyal
customers, particularly those who bought on credit, Safeway outlasted Jenkins
Groceteria, which left Ponoka by 1936. The Safeway Company closed its operations in
Ponoka by 1940, but the premises, bought by James Hamilton, continued to function as a
groceteria under the name Cash Foods. In 1957, it became the first store to open under
the auspices of the Independent Grocer’s Association, but in 1960 when IGA relocated to
other premises, the Safeway Store/Cash Foods ended its association with the grocery
trade.
The Safeway Store/Cash Foods is also significant because its distinctive store front
conveys the chain store feeling and modernism inherent in Safeway’s signature retail
architecture. A low height brick masonry structure with a broad rectangular footprint, it
embodies the design elements and materials that made Safeway easily recognizable,
including a signature faux pan tile roof flanked by brick pilasters capped by cross-gable
decorative finials, and large display windows. While its California roots are expressed in
the Spanish style tile roof that serves as a parapet, the faux pan tiles are made from
pressed metal, an adaptation to the Alberta climate.
-brick masonry construction
-parapet brick walls on the north elevation
-exterior brick chimney on the north elevation
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-pattern of fenestration and openings, including the narrow vertical windows on the north
elevation
-projecting wood cornice and trim including fascia and soffit
-three exterior lamps on upper part of main facade
-faux pan tile roof that serves as a parapet on main facade
-single door with large window pane complete with kicker plate and chrome push
bars
-display window comprising four large panes
-brick pilasters with parged bases and capped with cross gable finials featuring decorative
crests
-black ceramic tile courses at base of principal facade
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Thirsk 5c to $1 Store (5019 50 Avenue)
The Thirsk 5c to$1 Store has a strong degree of overall integrity that clearly portrays its
heritage value. Its streetscape location, evidence of sound workmanship and retention of
design elements such as strong horizontal and vertical lines drawn in stucco relief on the
principal façade, three distinct recessed bays, twin recessed doorways flanked by glass
block sidelights, a central bank of three large display windows, clearly convey the feeling
of starkness and functionalism inherent to Moderne architecture, and contribute to its
status as a landmark heritage property.
The Thirsk 5c to$1 Store constructed in 1949 is a rectangular plan one-storey flat-roofed
cast concrete structure whose principal façade is clad with a stucco finish with a parged
base. Located at 5027 50 Avenue in Ponoka’s commercial core, it has Moderne design
features including a principal façade with distinct recessed bays, a central bank of three
large display windows, and twin recessed doorways with glass block sidelights at each
end.
Heritage Value
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The Thirsk 5c to$1 Store, on the site of the former Alberta Hotel and later the Hornstein
Store, is valued for its historical association with Lloyd Thirsk’s well established
business, which had operated in the Kennedy and Russell building on Chipman Avenue
from 1937 and which also had a branch in Stettler. Constructed in 1949, the new Thirsk
5c to $1 Store, managed by Lloyd’s son Warren Thirsk, signified a post war expansion in
trade in Ponoka, and was the place to go for small items from thread to lipstick for under
a dollar and merchandise for all major seasonal events from Halloween for costumes,
noisemakers, and candy, to Valentine cards and cut outs, Mother’s day gifts, and back-toschool supplies. The site is also valued for its association with Alf’s Men’s Shop and
subsequently Perky’s Ladies Wear that occupied the west half of the building, while the
east half housed Thirsk’s 5c to $1 Store. In 1964 and Stedman’ took over Thirsk’s
business and expanded it into both sides of the premises. Stedmans’ sold out in 1976, to
be followed by a number of different business types, most notably in recent years the
Ponoka News and Advertiser.
The architectural significance of the Thirsk 5c to $1 Store lies in the starkness and
functionalism inherent in Moderne design that includes a principal façade with strong
horizontal and vertical lines drawn in stucco relief on a principal façade divided into three
distinct recessed bays, to provide a contrast with the carefully proportioned twin recessed
doorways flanked by glass block sidelights located at each end, and a central bank of
three large display windows. The emphasis on technology as part of the aesthetic of
Moderne styling is reflected in the oversized louvered vents.
Character defining elements - The key elements that define the heritage value of this
site include:
-cast concrete construction
-pattern of fenestration and openings
-oversized louvered vents
-stucco cladding with horizontal lines in relief
-pattern of paint finish that accentuate the building’s lines
-symmetrical arrangement of store front into distinct recessed bays
-twin recessed doorways with glass block sidelight
-wood door with large single pane
-central bank of three large fixed pane display windows
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The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building (5012 50 Avenue)
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building retains a high level of integrity. Its
prominent location and distinctive brick masonry construction and design, with a
principal facade incorporating the original bank front entrance and a 1951 display
window that signifies its commercial remodelling, conveys the feeling of permanence and
solidity associated with commercial brick architecture. The retention of its original design
elements, such as parapet walls, and projecting pressed metal cornice, traditional building
materials, and evidence of sound workmanship, all contribute to its status as a landmark
heritage property that is an anchor for the physical and visual continuity of Railway
Street in Ponoka’s heritage commercial core.
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building, constructed in 1917, is a rectangular
plan, two-storey, flat-roofed brick masonry building on a full concrete basement located
on its original two lot site at 5012 50 Avenue. It has high parapet walls, a projecting
metal cornice, cast stone concrete window lintels and sills, and a distinctive central
stepped entrance with pediment supported by cast stone brackets. The lower storey has an
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asymmetrical arrangement of windows and a secondary entrance. A distinctive painted
brick course that serves as a sign band divides the upper and lower stories.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building lies in its initial
historical association with banking as the Ponoka branch of the Merchant Bank of
Canada, first established in Reid’s Store on 51 (Donald) Avenue circa 1914, and
relocated in this imposing custom built structure constructed in 1917, signifying the
prosperity enjoyed by the town through the 1920s. It demonstrates the competitive
evolution and fortunes of banking in Canada; the Bank of Montreal merged with the
Merchant Bank of Canada merged in 1921, and took over the premises. By 1934 the
economic depression had affected the world of finance and the Ponoka clients of the
Bank of Montreal found their accounts closed and transferred to the Canadian Bank of
Commerce located on Railway Street since the turn of the 20th Century. The closing of
the Bank of Montreal signified the local economic downturn in Ponoka and marked a
significant change in the structure’s function when it was bought by Jack Mah Ming in
January 1935 to house his clothing business. An association with banking was rekindled
for the Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building when the Imperial Bank of Canada
rented the rear south half of the store from June 1950 until 1959, when it moved into a
new structure.
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building is equally valued for its continuous 68year connection to Jack’s Men’s Wear, which sold a myriad of items including hats,
coats, pyjamas, suits, pants, sweaters, shoes, winter rubbers and swim suits in summer,
providing tailoring services as well as housing a steam cleaning plant, including a press
in one of the bank’s vaults that was located in the basement.
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building is significant for its association with the
Mah Poy family who ran the Union Café. In 1946 Glen Mah Poy, returned serviceman,
together with his wife, Toy Win (née Chun) Mah Poy went into the clothing business
with his sister Song and brother-in-law Jack. In 1950 they extended the premises with a
60 foot two-storey addition that housed apartments up stairs, accessible by two sets of
exterior stairs and new openings on the side brick walls of the 1917 structure. The
divided lower floor served as bank premises in the south half of the original structure,
while the clothing business expanded into the addition on the north side, with a
modernised street entrance and continued as Jack’s Men’s Wear under Glen Mah Poy’s
proprietorship until 2004.
Hailed by the Ponoka Herald in 1917 as a handsome structure that would add much to
the street’s appearance, the Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building has architectural
value as the only remaining example in Ponoka of the type of brick masonry design with
cast stone features that characterized the contemporary image of permanence and solidity
projected by the chartered Canadian banks. Its significance lies in its imposing principal
façade, notably its unaltered second storey façade featuring high brick parapet walls with
projecting moulded brick detail, five window openings with cast stone sills and lintels, a
projecting pressed metal cornice, a painted decorative brick belt course serving as a sign
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band that indicates the subsequent retail function of the building, as well as the central
stepped doorway surmounted by a cast stone hood supported by volutes on the lower
storey. The asymmetrical arrangement of the lower storey demonstrates the remodelling
of the main floor of the structure into a retail store when a large display window was
installed to the west of the original entrance and a separate secondary recessed entrance
opening cut into the east side of the main façade in 1950.
Exterior:
-scale and massing, including its broad rectangular footprint that includes the 1950
addition to the rear
-flat roof
-brick masonry construction, including parapet walls with projecting moulded brick detail
-two concrete block chimneys
-painted decorative brick course that serves as a sign band on principal facade
-painted projecting pressed metal cornice
-patterns of fenestration and openings on main facade
-cast stone concrete sills and lintels
-protective band of cement parging applied to lower courses of brick masonry
-asymmetrical arrangement of primary façade, including central stepped entrance with
cast stone hood supported by volutes, display window opening and secondary entrance
opening
-steel hardware for hanging signs
-side door openings on upper storey of north and south elevations
Interior:
-historic features of south half of lower storey, including large walk-in bank vault
complete with inner doors and buzzer, wood window and door surrounds, transom
window over entrance way complete with opening mechanism.
\
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Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building ( 5039 49 Avenue)
The Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building retains an exceptional level of integrity. Its
scale and retention of original design elements, asymmetrical arrangement of main façade
with offset entrance, matching steps on two sides under a projecting canopy, flat roof,
paired doors, projecting eaves, a large front window with four panes, and evidence of
historic building materials and workmanship, convey its significance as a representative
example of small scale post-war International Style Modernism in Ponoka. An important
visual link in the surrounding streetscape, the Jubilee Library contributes to the fabric of
Ponoka’s heritage of modernist buildings.
The Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building is a rectangular plan single storey flat-roofed
building on a full basement with aggregate stucco finish, a distinctive projecting wide
eave and offset entrance with paired doors sheltered by a canopy that extends from the
north-west corner of the building to cover two sets of entrance steps from concrete paths
from the sidewalls. Located on its original site on a prominent corner at 5039 49 Avenue,
Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building is set back from the sidewalk on a wide grassy
suburban lot that lends visibility to the building and has a shrub bed on the north-west
corner and along the west elevation.
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Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building lies in its historical
association with decades-long efforts of Ponoka women, spearheaded by the Imperial
Order of the Daughters of Empire (IODE) to develop a public library in the town. The
library collection had its roots in the Alberta Women’s Institute’s 275 library books held
in Ponoka’s first community rest room from 1922, which moved into the second
Community Rest Room built in 1929. The running of a library was taken over by the
IODE in 1934, moving to a room in the town hall in 1937. Open on Saturday afternoons
and evenings, the Fort Ostell Library, as it was known, operated by the IODE grew
through the 1940s and was popular with children, but by 1954 it was at full capacity and
a campaign for a permanent public library building began.
The planning for the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building is significant for its
connection with Alberta’s Gold Jubilee in 1955, as the Alberta Government funded 50th
Anniversary cultural projects and increased spending backed by provincial legislation to
improve the province’s libraries. As the editorials of the Ponoka Herald championed
library plans, the town of Ponoka assumed municipal responsibility and excavation for
the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) began in October 1955. Even as building contractor
George Oberst worked additional fund raising continued, and it finally opened in August
1956. In 1984, the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building, was deemed too small for the
growing needs of the library and moved to another location.
The site is also significant for its cold war era association with the Town of Ponoka’s
Civil Defence League. Organized to prepare citizens for emergency measures in the face
of an air raid or nuclear fallout, it was very active from the early 1950s, with drills and
demonstrations, and was closely aligned with town’s Fire Department. From 1956 the
basement of the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building, with direct exterior access
through the west door, served as civil defence headquarters, and was used to store civil
defence gear and uniforms, and later housed the Motor Vehicles Branch for a short period
of time.
The architectural significance of the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building lies in its
expression of the new International Style adopted throughout Alberta that reflected the
modernism and progress inherent in the new economic and social climate of the province
as swelling oil revenues by 1949, sparked a province-wide public building program.
Distinguished by its low rectangular massing, hard lines and flat surfaces devoid of
decoration, the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building is a good example of a small
scale version of larger buildings in this style, with typical characteristics such as a flat
roof and projecting wide eave, a projecting flat-roofed simple canopy supported by metal
columns, sheltering an off-set entrance featuring paired doors, reached by matching sets
of concrete steps from two sides, complete with metal handrails, and large single paned
windows on its principal façade. In keeping with the contemporary emphasis on
landscaping of public buildings at the time, the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building
was set back on a grassed lot with concrete paths from the west and north side walks,
complete with a shrub bed on the north-west corner and along the west elevation.
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Exterior:
-flat roof and projecting wide eave
-concrete block construction including
-full concrete basement
-concrete block steps
-aggregate stucco wall finish
- parged finish scored in a random range pattern to resemble ashlar masonry
construction
-patterns of fenestration and openings on all four elevations
-asymmetrical arrangement of principal facade
-projecting flat-roofed simple canopy supported by metal columns
-off-set entrance with matching sets of steps from two sides, complete with metal
handrails
-paired doors, each with a single window pane
-large front window with four panes on north elevation
Interior:
Main Floor -12 foot ceilings with wood ceiling mouldings
Basement- wood wicket counter and associated metal edged Formica topped shelves
-original light switches and decorated plastic cover plates
-thermostat
Environment
-grass lawn on west and north side of the building
-shrub bed on the north-west corner and along the west elevation
-planters constructed from Roman brick located at entrance
-concrete paths from west and north sidewalks
The Leland Hotel (5009 50Avenue)
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The Leland Hotel has sufficient integrity to portray its heritage value. It is on its original
streetscape location and retains distinctive design elements such as its hipped roofline
with gable dormer windows, traditional materials such as wood trim, scrolled eave
brackets, and stucco finish. Together with its contrasting concrete block extension these
features convey the feeling of changing taste and adaptation of wood frame architecture
to modern requirements. Its longevity is evidence of sound workmanship and also
contributes to its status as a landmark heritage property.
The Leland Hotel constructed in 1901, is a large rectangular plan two and one-half storey
structure with a circa 1952 single storey L shaped extension at the rear, located at 5009
50 Avenue in Ponoka’s commercial core. It is distinguished by its hip roofline that
features a series of gable dormer windows, and by its stucco clad wood frame
construction contrasting with the concrete block construction of the flat roofed one storey
extension on the south side. Its principal façade, facing the street, has three entrances, and
a long modern wood verandah stretching three quarters the length of the building, with a
modernised entrance to the 1952 addition on the northwest corner.
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Heritage Value
The Leland Hotel has heritage value for its historic associations as one of the town’s
three early hotels with the services it provided mirroring the social and economic
evolution of the town. Constructed over the summer of 1901, painted in contrasting
colours of white and green, complete with new furniture from Edmonton, it formally
opened October 15, 1901, with a grand ball and supper to which its proprietors George
Sellars and Jack McCue extended a cordial invitation to the public. Answering the need
for accommodation for a transient population in the early days of settlement the Leland
Hotel, along with its competitors, the Royal Hotel (1900-) and the Temperance Hotel
(1900-1920), offered rooms, meals, and a bar stocked with liquors and cigars. The Leland
Hotel initially fulfilled a significant social function in the town, providing a meeting
space for numerous groups from women’s organizations to those interested in organizing
a football club, and was a popular venue for dinners and dances.
The Leland Hotel is also significant for its ability to demonstrate the effect of Alberta’s
changing liquor regulations. Its closure from August 1915 in anticipation of the outcome
of the Prohibition plebiscite held in July 1916, put about a dozen people out of work and
according to the Ponoka Herald, left “a great big void” on Chipman Avenue. Home to a
pool hall from October 1915 and a barber shop from 1917, the Leland Hotel reopened
without a bar in 1918 and under new management. In 1919 a Café opened in the hotel
offering “meals at all hours,” a welcome service for the increasing number of farmers
delivering grain to the elevators in town and commercial travellers serving the thriving
businesses of the town. Following the end of Prohibition in 1923; the Leland Hotel
continued to mirror changing social and economic dynamics, operating as a boarding
house and expanding its tavern to the rear circa 1952 as beer halls became the norm in
Alberta following the granting of hotel beer licences in 1951. Following the privatization
of government liquor stores in 1993, the café became a liquor outlet.
The prominent location of the Leland Hotel, its historic associations and continuing
function as hotel and tavern has given it landmark status in Ponoka as one of the earliest
extant buildings in town.
The architectural value of the Leland Hotel lies in its early wood frame design, and in the
demonstration of changing architectural taste and adaptation of wood frame construction
to modern requirements and new building materials in Ponoka over more than half a
century. The original portion of the site is characterized by a distinctive and unusual
hipped roofline that features a series of high gable-roofed dormer windows on the front of
the building and smaller ones at the rear and sides. The two and one-half storey structure
presents a long façade on the street with a row of double hung single pane windows on
the upper floor. Changes to the façade, including the alteration of the east corner entrance
were made in 1938 when the wood siding was stuccoed (except for the west elevation), in
keeping with a number of other buildings in Ponoka’s commercial core following this
trend. The Leland Hotel continued to modernize its appearance, and the design of the
circa 1952 rectangular extension entrance to the café on the north-west corner
incorporated contemporary Moderne horizontal stream line elements including a glass
block window and glass block side lights flanking the slightly recessed main doorway.
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Around the same time a single storey L shaped extension constructed at the rear
expanded the area of a rectangular shaped addition of 1904, and provided a contrast in
massing, scale and finish to the original main structure.
-scale and massing, including its original rectangular footprint, the circa 1952 rectangular
addition on the north-west corner, and the circa 1953 L shaped extension on south
elevation
-original structure (north section)
-rough field stone footing and wood sill plate
-wood frame construction of fir and cedar
-medium pitch hip-roof
-wide wood eaves
-scrolled wood brackets under eaves on west elevation
-4 original gable dormer windows on north and south elevations and one
on each end
-pattern of fenestration on all four elevations
-patterns of openings on the lower storey of principal façade
-wood frame window surrounds
-stucco cladding (1938)
-circa 1952 glass block window sidelights lights flanking the two main windows and door
facing east on principal façade
-circa 1952 extension (south section)
-concrete block construction
-flat roof
Period of Significance: 1901-to present.
Ponoka Capitol Theatre (4904 50 Street )
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The Capitol Theatre has a strong degree of overall integrity that clearly portrays its
heritage value. Its streetscape location, evidence of traditional workmanship and retention
of design elements such as the rectangular block of recessed windows on upper level and
classic marquee sign, clearly convey the feeling of functionalism inherent to theatre
design influenced by the stark lines of International Style architecture, and contribute to
its status as a landmark heritage property.
The Capitol Theatre constructed in 1949 is a large rectangular plan flat-roofed cast-inplace concrete structure whose principal façade is divided by an aluminum band with a
block of windows and stucco finish on the front upper level and spandrel glass and stone
veneer cladding with a recessed theatre entrance with double doors at street level.
Located at 4904 50 Street at the edge of Ponoka’s heritage commercial core, it features a
projecting back-lit marquee and neon sign.
Heritage Value
The Capitol Theatre, valued for its historical association with the progression of
entertainment in Ponoka, was constructed in 1949 on the site of a demolished house and
millinery store owned by the Headley’s who ran the Empress Theatre constructed in 1912
on the adjacent lot. The two theatres, representing different eras in movie entertainment,
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sat side by side for a number of years. Privately owned by entrepreneur Hector La Brie,
the Capital Theatre signified the shift from black and white to colour, opening on Boxing
Day 1949 with great fanfare and a congratulatory telegram from Bob Hope in
Hollywood, with “Oh What a Beautiful Doll”, starring June Haver and Mark Stevens in
Technicolor. The thoroughly modern interior with 528 upholstered seats, an 18 x 13 foot
screen, and for the hearing impaired and mothers in the cry room, ear phones connected
to the modern sound system, reflected the improvement of theatre facilities in the post
war period. With the best stage in town, the Capitol Theatre was also used for school
plays and reviews to the mid 1950s. For more than 60 years generations of movie-goers
have appreciated the Capital Theatre’s traditional ambience as they watch the latest
movie releases available for small town audiences.
The architectural significance of the Capital Theatre, designed by Edmonton Architects
Martland and Aberdeen, and constructed by Western Builders Ltd. of Red Deer, lies in its
inherent functionalism and stark lines influenced by International Style, evident in the
rectangular moulded outline of the block of recessed windows on the upper part of its
principal façade, and the horizontal division of the upper and lower levels by a wide
aluminum band. The use of the use of up-to date building materials including cut-stone
veneer and carrara glass on the lower level provides a contrast to the stucco finish of the
upper level. The design features a central recessed entrance with stepped columns that
continues the emphasis on sharp edges, flanked by aluminum poster display panels on the
north side, and a store front window with associated separate street entrance to the retail
bay, which for decades housed a barber shop, on the south side. A third entrance on the
north side provided street access to the upper level residential suite and projection room.
The Capital Theatre is also particularly valued for its illustration of cast-in-place concrete
construction technique, evident in the wood board impressions visible on the walls of the
unclad south, west and north elevations.
Character defining elements - The key elements that define the heritage value of this
site include:
Exterior:
-cast in place concrete construction including impressions of wood forms
-patterns of fenestration and recessed openings on principal façade
-stucco cladding on upper part of principal façade
-rectangular moulded outline of the block of recessed windows in the upper part of
principal façade
-aluminum band dividing the upper and lower levels
-tempered spandrel glass panels in replication of the appearance of the original maroon
carrara glass tiles
-imitation stone veneer base cladding
-stepped vertical block arrangement of recessed entrance with single pane double doors
-configuration of the back-lit marquee and neon signs
-recessed aluminum frame poster display panels
-air intake grill
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Interior:
-configuration of upper level, including stairway from ground level, residential suite and
projection room, including evidence, such as ventilation and openings, of the use of
traditional projection techniques.
T.J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building (5012 50 Avenue)
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The T.J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building retains a high level of integrity. In particular the
retention of its distinctive brick masonry construction and original design elements, such
as the stepped brick parapet wall, decorative brick courses, the recessed store entrance,
and evidence of historic building materials and workmanship, convey its significance as a
representative example of commercial architecture in Ponoka. An important visual link
in the surrounding streetscape, the T. J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building, contributes to the
distinctive heritage presence on 50 Avenue.
The T. J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building, constructed in 1919, is a rectangular plan single
storey gable-roofed brick masonry building with a high parapet wall, which stands on its
original location at 5012 50 Avenue. It occupies a long narrow lot and has a north-south
alley running behind. The T. J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building has a classic commercial
retail store front with a recessed entrance flanked by large display windows, a band of
transom windows and a retractable awning.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the T. J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building lies in its historical
association with clothier T. J. Durkin, pioneer settler and his business successor Mike
Green. Durkin, a clothier in Ponoka since 1903, used the construction of these new brick
premises in 1919, to convey the permanence of his business, which he advertised as “the
store for men,” offering goods that were fashionable as well as serviceable. When
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Durkin, sometime mayor, chairman of the school board, and president of the Board of
Trade, sold the store to Mike Green in 1928, the Durkin name and slogan “the store of
style and quality” was capitalised on in Green’s advertising as an assurance of continuing
excellence.
As a gentleman’s clothing store for more than three decades, the T. J. Durkin/Green’s
Ltd. Building is significant for its familiar retail presence in Ponoka, offering a wide
range of goods, including shirts, shoes, underwear, hats, overcoats and macinaws, as well
as boys and men’s suits, which were also available on custom order, to generations of
townsmen. The success of the business was marked by a concrete extension by 1947,
when Green handed the business over to Harry Friedman. When the store again changed
hands in 1954, it underwent a major change, selling both men and women’s’ clothes, and
the familiar storefront of the T. J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building was modernized under a
series of subsequent proprietors until it closed as a clothing store in 1986.
The T.J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building is architecturally significant as a representative
example of local design and workmanship in commercial brick masonry. The work of
building contractors Amundson and Morrison, the design is characterised by a stepped
brick raised parapet, and decorative brick courses, punctuated by decorative stucco coins
and a central diamond, and brick pilasters flanking a typical commercial recessed entry.
The symmetrical design of the main façade was intended to maximize its retail function
and incorporated large store front windows resting on bulkheads to display goods to
advantage.
-flat roof
-brick masonry construction including
-high stepped raised parapet wall
-stretcher bond finishing brick with decorative brick courses
-decorative stuccoed coins and central diamond
-brick pilasters with parging at the base
-symmetrical arrangement of store front
-central recessed entrance with concrete steps
-door with single plate glass window
-large single pane display windows
-wood bulk heads with panel insets
-band of eight light transom windows
-retractable awning
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Ponoka Herald Building (5010 51Avenue)
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The Ponoka Herald Building retains sufficient integrity in its original design, location
and environment, traditional building materials on its main façade, to give it status as a
heritage building. In particular its distinctive boom town front design conveys the feeling
of wood frame commercial architecture that characterised Ponoka’s earliest buildings. It
makes is a contributing element to the historic streetscape of Ponoka’s commercial core.
The Ponoka Herald Building, constructed circa 1906, is a rectangular plan one and one
half-storey wood frame building with a gable roof hidden by a classic boom town style
front. The lower level features a recessed entrance flanked by large display windows,
while the upper storey features two large single-sash double-hung windows. The Ponoka
Herald Building at 5010 51 Avenue occupies a single long narrow lot facing south with a
north-south alley running behind.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Ponoka Herald Building primarily lies in its historical
association with the Ponoka Herald newspaper (1900-1986), and the trajectory of small
town journalism. The Herald was housed in a succession of premises, until October,
1906, when the paper found its first permanent home in the former Armstrong and Jones
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Bank on 51 (Donald) Avenue north of 50 (Railway) Street, to which a press room was
added and subsequently became known as the Ponoka Herald office. Its central location
near the railway depot made it a hub of town activity and social interaction as the Ponoka
Herald rolled off the press each Wednesday. Visitors to town stopped in for information,
it acted as a lost-and-found for items such as dropped gloves or lost coats, townspeople
brought in the first or largest seasonal offerings from garden or field for public
inspection, personal stories or came to express outrage at a local happening, place a
classified advertisement or request a notice be placed in the local news section.
The Ponoka Herald Building has a significant association with the paper’s longest
serving owner and editor, George Gordon. George “Scottie” Gordon arrived in Ponoka
from Scotland in 1904 and bought the newspaper as a going concern in December 1905.
For the next thirty-four years as editor Gordon played a critical role in the town, bringing
world news and personal reports on provincial news stories, and editorials on local issues
and concerns in the town and surrounding districts. Gordon was the town’s best
promoter; the newspaper’s motto was “Ponoka First, Last, and All the Time.” For
decades he exhorted the town’s citizens to clean up their yards and alleys, paint their
houses, corral their animals, drive carefully, support the formation of local clubs and
organizations and encourage local endeavours. He reported the community’s joys and
sorrows in noting birth and death, accidents and marriages. Gordon also served the town
as postmaster from 1913-1946, sat on town council and served as mayor. In 1938 his son
John took over the newspaper, which he continued to operate from the same facility until
1953, when he sold the business, which moved to a new building constructed on 50
Street, until it folded in 1997.
The Ponoka Herald Building is architecturally significant as a rare remaining example of
early boom town front wood frame buildings in Ponoka. Its shape is dictated by its long
and narrow lot, the symmetrical design of the main façade with its boom town front with
wood siding, cornice and decorative wood trim and corner boards was intended to lend a
sense of importance to the simple structure and give it an imposing presence on the street.
It features a central recessed doorway with a transom window, flanked by large display
windows resting on raised bulkheads with panelled insets. The upper half storey features
two double-hung windows with wood lintels, sills and trim. The first of two concrete
additions, initially featuring a small rear entrance area, was added by 1924 and later
enlarged before 1951; a second larger addition was added sometime after 1951.
-gable roof
-wood drop siding on the west elevation
-boom town front
-metal capped wood cornice
-decorative wood trim and corner boards
-wood siding
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-patterns of fenestration
-two double-hung windows with wood lintels, sills and trim on upper storey
-central recessed entrance with concrete step
-transom window
-display windows
-raised wood bulk heads with panel insets
Ponoka Meat Market Building (5005 51 Avenue)
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The Ponoka Meat Market Building has strong overall integrity. The retention of its 1935
renovation design, location and environment, traditional building materials, evidence of
traditional workmanship, all contribute to its status as a heritage building. In particular its
distinctive boom town front with an unusual slightly recessed angled entrance, conveys
the feeling of commercial architecture that characterised Ponoka’s early buildings. It
makes a significant contribution to the streetscape that includes the associated F.E. Algar
building on the same lot and several other heritage buildings.
The Ponoka Meat Market Building, constructed sometime after 1914, is a rectangular
plan one-storey wood frame building with a gable roof and a classic high boom town
style front. It features an offset angled recessed entrance on the north-west corner,
flanked by a large display window. On its original location at 5005 51 Avenue bordering
the alley on a lot shared with the F.E. Algar Building, the Ponoka Meat Market Building
faces north onto 51 Avenue.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the Ponoka Meat Market Building primarily lies in its historical
association as mixed-use premises in connection with the F.E. Algar Building on the
same lot, the historey of Ponoka’s meat and butchering businesses and in particular with
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Fritz Bachor, long time district farmer and town butcher who arrived in the Ponoka area
in 1909. Bachor purchased Ponoka’s Pioneer Meat Market in 1909 and ran it
intermittently in competition with several other butchers in town, including the imperial
Meat Market and the Quality Meat Market, over the next two decades, going in and out
of the meat market business in tandem with his farming operation west of Ponoka.
The Ponoka Meat Market Building is located on the site of Ponoka’s post office that
burned to the ground in May 1914 along with the 1902 general store owned by
postmaster C.D. Algar. Although the exact date of construction of the Ponoka Meat
Market Building is unknown, it was used for storage, specifically for salt in 1928, in
connection with the F.E. Algar Building constructed in 1914. Its present appearance
resulted from major alterations to the structure in 1935 when it was rented to Fritz Bachor
as a butcher shop, which he operated under the name Ponoka Meat Market until 1940, the
year he died. From February to June 1950 it served as temporary premises for the
Imperial Bank of Canada when it opened its Ponoka branch. The Ponoka Meat Market
Building later housed a shoe repair business, a function it maintained until the last
business closed in 1997.
The Ponoka Meat Market Building is architecturally significant as an example of
temporary boom town front small wood frame buildings that characterised early Ponoka
and its alleys until World War II. Orientated towards 51 Avenue, the asymmetrical design
of this renovated wood frame gable-roofed storage shed was intended to lend a sense of
importance to the simple structure and give it an imposing presence on the street. Set on a
concrete foundation, it features an offset angled slightly recessed corner entrance
delineated by wood trim, with concrete steps, a wood door with glass pane, and a small
transom window. Its retail function from 1935 is signified through its large display
window east of the entrance, while the mix of siding types and patched appearance of
former openings indicates its former storage and other uses. The Ponoka Meat Market is
valued as a town landmark structure because of its size and architectural design and
because it is believed to be associated with Ponoka’s early commercial development.
-scale and massing, including its small rectangular footprint
-gable roof
-patterns of fenestration and openings
-arrangement of main facade
-boom town front complete with Ponoka Meat Market sign lettering
-wood bevelled siding
-offset angled slightly recessed corner entrance
-large fixed store front window with three over three arrangement of panes
-mix of bevelled and drop siding
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-patched appearance of former openings on the west and east facades indicating former
uses of the building
-unpainted drop siding on east elevation
-brick chimney on roof peak rear of building
-stove pipe protruding through east side of roof
CPR Dam (Battle River, directly east of 50 Avenue).
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The CPR dam retains its integrity of scale and original design elements, such as
framework of wooden piles and horizontal beam, evidence of historic building materials,
such as sawn lumber and iron bolts, and sound workmanship, convey its significance as a
rare example of early 20th century weir design. A valued visual landmark in the
environment surrounding Ponoka’s heritage commercial core, the CPR Dam is a valued
archaeological feature associated with Ponoka’s railway heritage and the early years of
the town.
The CPR dam on the Battle River at Ponoka is a wood and stone weir once used to form
a reservoir below the townsite. Located in its original position on a prominent bend in the
river situated opposite the end of 50 Avenue, the CPR dam can be seen from a path and
interpretive viewing point on the east side of the railway tracks.
Heritage Value
The heritage value of the CPR dam on the Battle River on Ponoka lies in its association
with railway transportation and the Canadian Pacific Railway’s depot and associated
railway structures, notably the water tower used to service the steam locomotives on the
Calgary-Edmonton line. Constructed by the CPR in 1905, and rebuilt in 1907, the CPR
Dam replaced the two piers and boom used to catch logs floated downstream from Pigeon
Lake to the saw mills established at Ponoka at the turn of the century. After 1905, the
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McKelvey and Blain sawmill used the CPR Dam in junction with a jack ladder to raise
the logs into the mill. The CPR used a large windmill on the river bank to pump water
from the reservoir behind the dam into its water tank.
The CPR Dam is also significant for its association with recreational activities, most
notably, fishing, boating, and swimming, on the Battle River. Celebrated in a post card of
the town in the 1920s, it was a popular and scenic place to cast a line. The placing of a
weir on the river often caused fish to be stranded downstream, resulting in huge numbers
of fish being caught for the frying pan in the summer months. Fishery Inspectors
eventually after years of complaints, had fish ladders installed in 1919 to facilitate the
passage of fish up stream. Swimming in the deep water above the CPR dam was popular;
around the bend, south of the dam, a spring board attracted young people in summer. A
significant number of drowning accidents prompted the formation of the Swimming Pool
Association in 1937 to raise money for a town pool, but it was not realized until 1957 and
meanwhile swimming anywhere on the river continued to be hazardous.
The CPR dam is architecturally significant as a rare example of early 20th century weir
design, as evident in the large wooden piles, spaced about six feet apart, and driven into
the river bed. Two large beams bolted across the piles formed a framework. Vertical
planks fastened to the beams formed the downstream face of the weir. On the upside
stream side a continuous row of piles were driven in to the river bed to further waterproof
the structure, and the space between the row of piles and the planks was filled with
ballast to form a weir.
-remnants of two rows of wooden piles
-vertical planks with beam bolted in place
-stone ballast between the rows of wooden piles
Environment
-associated large stones at river bank edges
-traditional paths along west side of river
Period of Significance: 1905-late 1950s
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TOWN OF PONOKA
MUNICIPAL HERITAGE
INVENTORY - PART II
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PART II
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Ƈ Evaluation of Significance and Integrity
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Evaluation Ƈ The F.E. Algar Building
Applicable Significance Criteria
Theme A - Theme/Activity/Cultural practice /Event
The F.E. Algar Building is significant for its ability to demonstrate the development of
commercial retail activity and a growing concern with fire prevention in pre-World War I
Ponoka. Its construction in 1914 on the site of two earlier Algar stores lost to fire, marks
the adoption of more fire proof building materials in Alberta’s fledgling towns in an
effort to avoid huge financial loss and the endangering of life.
The business that operated from the F. E.Algar Building exemplifies the nature of large
general stores, offering a wide range of goods, including groceries, fresh fruit and other
produce, dry goods, clothes, footwear, china, household fixtures, photography equipment,
toys, to serve the mixed farming districts around Ponoka.
Theme B - Institution /Person
The heritage value of the F.E. Algar Building lies in its historical association with
Charles Duncan Algar, pioneer settler and first postmaster in Ponoka, and his son
Frederick Edward Algar, with whom he opened the first store in Ponoka, known as
Siding 14, in 1895 shortly after the completion of the Calgary and Edmonton railway and
the survey of the townsite into lots.
Theme C – Style/construction
The architectural significance of the F.E. Algar Building lies in its sophisticated
exemplification of classically inspired design and workmanship in commercial brick
masonry in pre-World War I Ponoka. On the north-west corner a secondary store front
entrance with recessed entrance below a transom window and flanked by a single pane
window resting on a bulkhead, closely mirrors the main façade and reinforces the
continuity of design.
Theme – E – Landmark/Symbolic value
The F.E. Algar Building is valued as a prominent historic landmark and as the centre
piece of the Ponoka Main Street project 1996-1999; and is a visual anchor that
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demonstrates the viability of maintaining and preserving heritage buildings fostering
community identity and pride.
Aspects of Integrity
Location
The stands on its original prominent corner lot location facing south onto 50 (Railway)
Street.
Design
The F.E. Algar Store retains its design integrity as embodied in elements such as the
brick bond and stepped parapet walls, symmetrical principal façade a central recessed
doorway, flanked by supporting metal columns, surmounted by a broad transom window
with mullions, stepped parapet walls with painted pressed metal cornices on the principal
east and north elevations, brick voussoirs on the semi-circular window openings on the
north wall, as well as a secondary store front entrance with recessed entrance below a
transom window and flanked by a single pane window resting on a bulkhead on the
north-west corner.
The store interior also retains its integrity of design with its large open space, high
pressed tin ceiling, moldings, and millwork elements, and a raised business office area
accessed by a stairway and lit by a skylight in the south west corner.
By the 1990s some of these elements, such as the brick walls, (covered by white paint in
the 1940s and later by enamel) were concealed. They and were cleaned, repaired,
repainted or replaced as required, as part of the restoration measures carried out in 1999
under the Ponoka Main Street Project.
Environment
The F.E. Algar Store is in close proximity to a number of heritage buildings on Ponoka’s
Railway Street and makes a significant contribution to the heritage fabric of the town’s
commercial core.
Materials
The retention of the exterior brick walls, pressed metal cornices, transom windows with
wood mullions, metal support columns, large store front window panes set on wood bulk
heads with inset panels, and retention of interior historic fabric as lathe and plaster walls
pressed tin ceilings and moldings, gives the building a high degree of material integrity
that pertains to its period of significance.
This aspect of integrity, although the replacement wood bulkheads, doors, interior store
display platforms, and window glass used is of a historic material type rather than
original historic fabric, is unaffected overall by the major restoration measures circa
1999.
These measures included the removal of the enamel paint on the east and north facades
and repointing of the masonry; rebuilding and repainting of storefront bulkheads on east
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and north elevations; repair of two concrete sills and installation of thermal panes in
semi-circular window openings; repair and repainting of metal cornices; restoration and
repair of tongue and groove ceiling in front entrance; replacement of two panes in
transom windows; replacement of cracked windows, replacement of entire roof surface
and some of the underlying deck; injection of insulation into roof space to improve heat
retention and to help prevent ice dams; installation of new exterior doors, restoration and
reinstallation of original hardware (although not in exact historic position) for retractable
awning.
Workmanship
The workmanship reflects a sophisticated level of skill and the integrity has been
negligibly affected by modern workmanship during the restoration of the building.
Feeling
Its prominent corner lot location and sophisticated brick masonry construction and
distinctive design with two principal facades incorporating primary and secondary store
fronts conveys the feeling of pre-World War I commercial retail architecture and its
association with the entrepreneurship of the Algar family.
Association
The building retains a strong association with its original function though a continuing
prominent retail presence on Railway Street.
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Evaluation Ƈ Ponoka Community Rest Room
Theme A – Theme/Activity/Cultural practice/Event.
The Ponoka Community Rest Room is significant as a facility for the provision of a
social service for farm women travelling in from country districts with small children
who needed washroom facilities and somewhere warm to rest, feed babies, use the
telephone, and wait while their husbands conducted farm business, or as a base from
which to shop. Its construction in 1929 to replace an earlier rest room established in 1920
on the same lot illustrates the importance of its function for women and provides
evidence that the social atmosphere of small towns was not conducive to providing a
comfort level for country women or their needs. It signifies the cooperation between town
and country that marked agricultural service centres at the time it was built and which
lasted until the last decade of the 20th Century.
Theme B – Institution /Person
The Ponoka Community Restroom is significant for its association with women’s
organizations of the early 20th century. It was built in 1929 by the Ponoka Community
Rest Room Association, The Association, registered in 1925 under the Societies Act of
1924, represented a wide membership marked by a long roll call of local women who
served as President or Directors of the Association. The Association symbolized
cooperation among women, and illustrates strategies of organization and fund raising to
accomplish their goals. The Ponoka Community Rest Room is also associated with a
number of women’s organizations including the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the
Empire (IODE) who managed its small library and used the building as their headquarters
for a period of time.
The Ponoka Community Rest Room has a significant connection with the Ponoka
Stampede, first held in 1920 with the explicit purpose of raising funds for the first rest
room.
The Ponoka Community Rest Room has a direct association with Walter Gee, garage
owner, who allowed the Association to use the east wall on his premises, a building with
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an almost identical façade in cast stone concrete on the lot immediately west, as a party
wall. His contribution symbolizes the wide support of the town’s business men for the
project. Gee donated the proceeds from a dance to mark the opening of his garage to the
Association for their building fund.
Theme C- Design/Style /Construction
The Ponoka Community Rest Room is significant for its cast stone construction a
relatively rare construction material. Cast stone concrete blocks produced by large
manufacturing plants, local suppliers, or cast in molds available through catalogues for
home manufacture, were a popular and cost effective substitute for sandstone in the early
decades of the 20th century. Used most often for steps, lintels, sills, and ornamental
masonry details, extant buildings clad with or wholly constructed in cast stone are
relatively rare and the Ponoka Community Rest Room provides the surviving example of
its use in the town.
Location
The Ponoka Community Rest Room stands on its original wide lot location at 5014 on
the north side of 51 Avenue within Ponoka’s original commercial core.
Design
The site retains sufficient design integrity as embodied in its rectangular form and
massing, flat roof, patterns and size of fenestration and openings, window design and
original frames on lower floor of main façade, and use of a wide belt course to divide the
upper and lower stories, to convey its architectural significance.
Environment
The former Ponoka Community Rest Room building continues to be part of the historic
downtown core of Ponoka and in close streetscape proximity to a number of other heriage
buildings.
Materials
The retention of the contoured cast stone concrete block façades and contrasting
aggregate concrete stucco belt course and sills and lintels and finish on parapet cap,
contributes to the high material integrity of the exterior of the building.
This aspect of the building’s integrity is unaffected overall by restoration measures
undertaken around 1999 under the Ponoka Main Street Project. These included removing
loose and spalling concrete from the cast stone surfaces; repairing cast stone with
Portland cement mortar, tooled with trowels and brushes to imitate the original cast stone
contours, and application of a cement wash; repair of concrete window sills and
installation of a saw-cut drip edge; replacement of main floor windows with custom-built
thermal panes; repainting of vent and window and door frames; installation of the
original door as a non-functioning unit in its original opening.
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Workmanship
The workmanship demonstrates basic skills and traditions used in commercial buildings
of the day.
Feeling
The high level of retention of design and materials evident on the exterior of the building
in its commercial streetscape context, contributes to this aspect of integrity. The
preservation of its relatively rare cast-stone facade, and evidence of sound workmanship,
contributes to its architectural significance and conveys a distinctive feeling and aesthetic
to the building.
Association
The building retains an intangible association with its original function that remained
unchanged until 1992, as the character defining elements of its atypical commercial style
design sets it apart from other commercial buildings.
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Evaluation Ƈ The Bird Drug Co. Ltd. Building
Theme A - Theme/Activity/Cultural practice/Event.
The Bird Drug Company Ltd Building is significant for its ability to convey its
association with a long time pharmacy business in Ponoka. Closely associated with
Sidney Bird’s second drug store in town, the Ponoka Pharmacy, established in 1929, The
Bird Drug Company Ltd Building basement provided storage space for goods for both
pharmacies. The histories of the two buildings remained entwined until 1947 when Bird’s
twenty-one year employee, Garnet Ranks, bought the Ponoka Pharmacy and Bird sold the
Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building as a going concern and the retention of the Bird Drug
Company Ltd. name and sign marked its importance as a local business and valued
andmark during its last decade as a functioning drug store until 1959.
The Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building is significant for its association with Sidney Bird,
who served Ponoka as a pharmacist from 1910 to 1947, which is visibility demonstrated
through its restored sign for The Bird Drug Co. Ltd. Bird first opened a drug store in
Ponoka in 1910, and then took over the Campbell Drug Store in 1916. The construction
of this new building in 1918 and subsequent interior renovations and a brick masonry
addition on the east side in 1929, marked the expansion of Bird’s business, which was
shortly further augmented by his purchase of the Ponoka Pharmacy his newly built
competitor.
The architectural significance of the Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building lies primarily in
its representation of sophisticated design and workmanship in commercial brick masonry.
Its has an imposing retail presence through the tall store front display windows of the
primary store front entrance that rest on wood bulkheads to display goods to advantage,
and are surmounted by two-light transom windows to give light to the interior. The Bird
Drug Company Ltd. Building has an asymmetrical design on the main façade–a three bay
primary store front, separated and supported by two cast iron columns beneath the beam
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that supports the upper floor, and an additional bay comprising a display window and two
door ways built in 1929 to match the existing building in the materials and design of the
openings.
Theme E – Landmark/Symbolic value
The Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building is a landmark heritage property on a prominent
half lot at the intersection of an alley and the east end of 50 Avenue. Its imposing
streetscape presence contributes to the physical and visual continuity of 50 Avenue in
Ponoka’s heritage commercial core.
Location
The Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building stands on its original lot location facing south on
50 Avenue.
Design
The Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building is significant as a fine example of commercial
brick construction architecture extant in Ponoka. It retains its design integrity as
embodied in elements such as the painted sign band that is a strong compositional
element, the projecting pressed metal bracketed cornice and decorative finials, brick
parapet walls and pilasters, brick vousoirs on the semi-circular window openings.
While some of these elements, such as the brick walls (covered by paint) and the signs
were concealed or faded, they were cleaned, repaired, repainted as part of the restoration
measures based on physical evidence carried out in 1999 under the Ponoka Main Street
Project.
Environment
The Birds Drug Ltd. Building continues to be an anchor structure for the historic
commercial core of Ponoka and is in close proximity to a number of historic buildings
that retain their heritage value.
Materials
The retention of the exterior brick walls and parapets, painted pressed metal cornice, with
brackets and decorative finials, two-light transom windows with prism glass, tall vertical
store front windows set on wood bulkheads with inset panels gives the building a high
degree of material integrity.
This aspect of integrity, although several elements (such as the doors and window panes)
are of a historic material type rather than original historic fabric, is unaffected overall by
the major restoration measures undertaken in 1999. These included removal of paint
from the bricks; re-pointing of the masonry; replacement of broken transom windows;
restoration of painted signs, repair and repainting of the cornice; custom built replication
of the main door, installation of new sealed units with glazed store front windows; and
the replacement of the east door.
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Workmanship
The workmanship reflects a sophisticated level of skill most particularly in the original
brick masonry construction, which included features such as brick vousoirs. The integrity
has been negligibly affected by modern workmanship during restoration of the building.
Feeling
The high retention of the sophisticated design and materials evident in the distinctive
brick masonry construction of a principal facade incorporating a primary store front
entrance, secondary entrances, and ghost signs, conveys the feeling of pre World War I
commercial retail architecture and indicates its historical association with Sidney Bird,
long time Ponoka pharmacist.
Association
The building retains a strong association with its original function though the restored
signs on three facades.
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Evaluation Ƈ Sweet Block
The Sweet Block is a significant structure that demonstrates the recovery from the
economic downturn of the Depression years in Ponoka. The importance of the new Sweet
Building was demonstrated in its ability to attract new businesses to town and it is valued
for its typical commercial block mixed-use function characterized by a succession of
businesses on its lower storey along with commercial space, offices, and residential rental
suites on the upper storey.
The Sweet Block is primarily significant for its association with business man Don Sweet
and his wife Ella, who had run a beauty parlour in Ponoka since 1926. The Sweet Block
is also valued for its association with a series of long term Ponoka businesses including
Harry Wright’s Ponoka News and Advertiser established in 1949.
The Sweet Block, designed by architect J. A. Buchannan of Edmonton, and completed in
1937 is significant as an early example of streamline Moderne architecture in Ponoka.
The Sweet Block is noteworthy for its heating and water systems used prior to the
availability of public utility services, through the now decommissioned steam heating
system that operated from an extant boiler in the basement.
Location
The Sweet Block stands on its original lot facing north onto 50 (Chipman) Avenue.
Design
The site retains its design integrity as embodied in Moderne elements such as stucco
finish featuring horizontal stream lines, curved recessed entranceways, and interior paint
detailing on the upper storey corridors and high ceilings, and its brick masonry features
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such as voussoirs over the window openings, chimneys, and its rear upper storey deck
that functioned as part of the fire escape.
While the stucco facade was later concealed (covered by paint and later sheet metal
cladding), it was restored in 1996. The exterior fire escape stairs to the upper storey deck
and door at the rear of the building have not been replaced and the storage shed that
conceals the basement entrance on the south-west corner of the building was extended
into the space where the stairs were located at the west end of the deck.
Environment
The Sweet Block continues to be at the commercial centre of Ponoka, an environment
that retains a substantial historic core.
Materials
The retention of the exterior finishing brick veneer walls, brick voussoirs, stuccoed
principle façade, wood window frames, all contribute to the strong material integrity of
the exterior. This aspect of integrity, is unaffected by the minor restoration measures
undertaken in 1996 under the Ponoka Main Street Project. These included removal of
paint from stucco and modern sheet metal cladding on principal façade, remedial coats of
paint on the stucco, replacement of aluminum frames on the windows on the upper storey
on principal façade with wood, repainting of original doors and trim.
Workmanship
The workmanship reflects a high level of skill evident in the brick masonry construction
and stucco finishing methods. The integrity of the workmanship has been negligibly
affected during the restoration of the building.
Feeling
The high retention of design and traditional materials evident in its distinctive brick
masonry construction, original design elements, such as the stucco finish featuring
horizontal stream lines, curved recessed entranceways, interior spatial configurations on
two stories, convey its significance as a rare example of early Moderne architecture in
Ponoka. The retention of the original boiler and water cistern in the basement exemplifies
heating and water systems prior to the availability of public utility services.
Association
The building retains a strong association with its original mixed use function that has
remained unchanged to the present.
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Evaluation ƇThe Brick School
The historical significance of the Ponoka Brick School constructed in 1929 lies in its
association with the provision of education to the students of a rapidly expanded town,
and the subsequent changes and developments in education and its administration though
the 1950s to the present.
The Ponoka Brick School is architecturally significant as an outstanding example of a
Collegiate Gothic school design, simplified and adapted to 1920s sensibilities and
Filtered through an Art Deco lens, as embodied in its defined outlines, two-dimensional
and geometric elements.
The Ponoka Brick School is valued as a prominent visual landmark that symbolizes
thousands of personal associations of youthful achievement, teachers, mentors, and
friendships.
Location
The Ponoka Brick School stands on its original location facing south-east at the terminus
of 50 Avenue.
Design
The site has an outstanding degree of design integrity as embodied in the brick masonry
construction, a variety of decorative brick patterns, high parapet walls, projecting corner
piers with stucco caps featuring incised lancet niches, pilasters, a symmetrical
arrangement of numerous large windows on both stories, and a central entrance with a
large Tudor arch window over the entrance.
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While there are no missing design elements a clear view of the front entrance has been
obscured by the new front porch entrance constructed in 1986.
Environment
The Ponoka Brick School sits on a large school grounds on high ground west of the
commercial core of Ponoka, and is flanked by later school buildings on the south side.
The landscaping of the school grounds, undertaken from 1930, that once included a
hedge and shrub beds bordering the path to the main entrance and shrubs and trees on the
lawns, has few remnants other than a straight concrete path to the street and several
isolated trees.
Materials
The one hundred percent retention of the brick masonry walls and parapets, decorative
brick courses, projecting corner piers with stucco caps featuring incised lancet niches, all
contribute to the strong material integrity of the exterior.
This aspect of integrity is negligibly affected overall by changes to the building in 1986
that included the installation of new windows and PVC frames, addition of a front
entrance porch and two small red brick extensions with entrances on the west elevation.
Workmanship
The original workmanship reflects a sophisticated level of skill in the original brick
masonry construction, most evident in the decorative brick courses, cast stone and stucco
work.
The overall integrity is not affected by modern workmanship during the addition of the
front porch entrance or the rear brick additions in 1986.
Feeling
The retention of design and materials evident in its distinctive brick masonry
construction, original design elements such as decorative brick patterns, high parapet
walls, projecting corner piers with stucco caps featuring incised lancet niches, pilasters,
the symmetrical arrangement of numerous large windows on both stories, and a central
entrance with a large Tudor arch window over entrance, convey the feeling of
permanence and solidity associated with Collegiate Gothic style architecture featured in a
up-to-date structure displaying Art Deco influences.
Association
The site retains a strong association with its large school grounds location, and with its
original function through the integrity of its design and materials, remaining in
continuous use as a school to the present.
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Evaluation ƇAllen’s Furniture Store
Allen’s Furniture Store is significant for its association with R .K. Allen, a founding
father of the town. Allen’s decision to construct this new building in 1903 on Lot 3 to sell
furniture signified the expediential growth of Ponoka and the expansion of commerce.
The furniture store complemented Allen’s own hardware business located next door in a
building on Lot 4. The two buildings had matching frontage by 1910 and were known as
Allen’s Hardware and Furniture. Although Allen sold out in 1915, Allen’s Furniture
Store, under subsequent proprietorships, retained its original function 1987.
The architectural significance of Allen’s Furniture Store lies in Allen’s furniture store is
lies in its early 20th Century vernacular wood frame construction of which it is a rare
extant example in Ponoka. The extant high parapet wall on the south elevation, while
there is none on the north elevation, signifies the prior sharing of a party wall with
building on the next lot to the north, a practice that was common at the time, but later
abandoned due to an increasing emphasis on fire prevention.
Allen’s Furniture Store is a landmark heritage property on a prominent lot on Railway
Street. Its imposing streetscape presence is an important link in the physical and visual
continuity of Railway Street in Ponoka’s heritage commercial core.
Location
Allen’s Furniture Store stands on its original location facing east on Railway Street.
Design
Allen’s Furniture Store is significant as a rare example of vernacular wood frame
construction architecture extant in Ponoka. It retains its design integrity as embodied in
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elements such as the broad plain upper storey clad with siding that features three double
hung single sash windows, and the wood cornice with brackets.
By the 1990s some of these elements were in poor repair and the wood siding cladding
concealed (covered by pressed metal siding since 1922 and later stucco). They were
removed, repaired, repainted or replaced, as part of the restoration measures based on
physical evidence carried out in 1999 under the Ponoka Main Street Project.
Environment
Allen’s Furniture Store is in close proximity to a number of historic buildings that retain
their heritage value and contributes to the heritage fabric of Ponoka’s Railway Street.
Materials
The retention of the wood cladding with both horizontal siding and vertical tongue and
groove panelling, the wood cornice with brackets, and the wood trim on the upper storey
windows gives the building a sufficient degree of material integrity that pertains to its
period of significance.
This aspect of integrity, although the siding is of a historic material type rather than
1999. These included the removal of stucco, pressed metal siding and vinyl siding from
the principal façade, repair and repainting of the wood cornice and wood trim.
Workmanship
The workmanship reflects a practical level of skill most particularly in the wood frame
construction, which includes the only example of an extant wooden cornice in Ponoka.
The integrity has been negligibly affected by modern workmanship during restoration of
the building, although the wood siding has had some shrinkage.
Feeling
The retention of the basic design and materials, an imposing height and distinctive wood
cornice supported by brackets and wood siding on the upper storey of the principal façade
conveys the feeling of pioneer commercial retail architecture.
Association
The building retains a strong association with its original function though a continuing
retail presence on Railway Street.
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Evaluation Ƈ The Safeway Store
The heritage value of the Safeway Store/Cash foods lies in its historical association with
the international Safeway Company that was based in California and its bid to enter the
Alberta market in the late 1920s, and it represents the intense competition that marked the
grocery trade in Ponoka in a period of economic downturn in the 1930s.
It is also significant for its association with Ponoka grocer James Hamilton who bought
the building when Safeway closed in 1940. It continued to function as a groceteria under
the name Cash Foods. In 1957 it became the first store to open under the auspices of the
Independent Grocer’s Association, but in 1960 when IGA relocated to other premises, the
Safeway Store/Cash Foods ended its association with the grocery trade.
The Safeway Store/Cash foods is significant because it embodies the elements that made
Safeway easily recognizable through a unique architectural design that included a
characteristic low height brick masonry structure with a broad rectangular footprint
distinguished by a signature faux pan tile roof flanked by brick pilasters capped by crossgable decorative finials, and large display windows.
Location
The Safeway Store/Cash foods stands on its original location facing east on 50 Avenue.
Design
The Safeway Store retains the design elements that gave made the Safeway Company an
easily recognizable; a low height brick masonry structure with a broad rectangular
footprint distinguished by a signature faux pan tile roof flanked by brick pilasters capped
by cross-gable decorative finials, and large display windows.
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By the 1990s some of these elements were concealed (most of the main façade covered
by pressed metal siding and the pilasters by paint). They were cleaned, repaired,
repainted or replaced, as part of the restoration measures carried out in 1999 under the
Ponoka Main Street Project.
Environment
The Safeway Store/Cash Foods is in close proximity to a number of red brick historic
buildings on both sides of 50 Avenue that retain their heritage value and contributes to
the heritage fabric of Ponoka’s commercial core.
Materials
The retention of the brick masonry, brick pilasters with decorative finials, faux pan tiles,
wood cornice and trim, and ceramic tiles gives the building a sufficient degree of material
integrity that pertains to its period of significance.
This aspect of integrity, although the ceramic tile is of a historic material type rather than
1999. These included the removal of metal siding from the principal façade,
reconstruction of the projecting wood cornice, repair of entrance door, and repainting of
the faux pan tiles, restoration of windows, repairing of parging at base of brick pilasters,
removal of white paint from pilasters, and re-grouting of brick masonry.
The inclusion of a metal band above the display windows and the stucco cladding on the
upper part of the main façade are modern intrusions that do not pertain to the period of
significance.
Workmanship
The workmanship reflects a practical level of skill and the integrity has been negligibly
affected by modern workmanship during restoration of the building.
Feeling
Its streetscape location, the retention of the basic design and materials, the scale of the
building and the basic design and materials of its distinctive store front conveys the chain
store feeling and modernism inherent in Safeway’s signature retail architecture.
Association
The building retains an association with its original function though a continuing retail
presence on 50 Avenue.
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Evaluation Ƈ Thirsk’s 5c to $1 Store
The heritage value of the Thirsk’s 5c to $1 Store lies in its historical association with
Lloyd Thirsk’s well established business, which operated in the Kennedy and Russell
building on Chipman Avenue from 1937 and which also had a branch in Stettler.
Constructed in 1949, the new Thirsk 5c to $1 Store, managed by Lloyd’s son Warren
Thirsk, signified a post war expansion in trade in Ponoka.
The site is also valued for its association with Alf’s Men’s Shop and subsequently
Perky’s Ladies Wear that occupied the west half of the building, while the east half
housed Thirsk’s 5c to $1 Store, and with Stedmans’ which took over Thirsk’s business
in1964 and expanded it into both sides of the premises.
The Thirsk 5 c to $1 Store is representative of the expression of the Moderne style
adopted in a number of commercial buildings in Ponoka. Distinguished by its low
rectangular massing, hard lines and flat surfaces, the architectural significance of the
Thirsk 5c to $1 Store lies in the starkness and functionalism inherent in Moderne design.
Location
Thirsk’s 5c to $1 Store stands on its original location at 5019 50 Avenue.
Design
The retention of this aspect of integrity is exceptionally high, as demonstrated by the
original low rectangular massing with strong horizontal and vertical lines drawn in stucco
relief on a principal façade divided into three distinct recessed bays, twin recessed
doorways flanked by glass block sidelights located at each end, and a central bank of
three large display windows, and oversized louvered vents.
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The only alteration to the design is in the size of the Thirsk sign that was located on the
building’s principal façade from 1949 until it was taken over by Stedmans’, and the
addition of exterior lights.
Environment
Thirsk’s 5c to $1 Store is located in the commercial core of Ponoka’s commercial core
and its proximity to older heritage brick buildings demonstrates the expansion and
modernisation of the town’s architecture during the 1940s, and contributes to the varied
fabric of Ponoka’s heritage buildings.
Materials
The retention of original materials on this building is almost 100%. Original materials
include the concrete block construction, stucco finish, glass block sidelights on each side
of the twin doorways, door and window frames, all contribute to the strong material
integrity of the exterior.
This aspect of integrity, is unaffected by the minor restoration measures undertaken in
1999 under the Ponoka Main Street Project. These included removal of a vinyl canopy
and fascia sign, cleaning, patching and repainting of stucco, repair and repainting of
louvered vents, repainting of doors and window trim, and installation of new kick plates.
Workmanship
The workmanship reflects the local practical workmanship of the period.
Feeling
Thirsk’s 5c to $1 Store due to the retention of its original design elements, with strong
horizontal and vertical lines drawn in stucco relief and symmetrical arrangement of main
façade divided into three distinct recessed bays, twin recessed doorways flanked by glass
block sidelights located at each end, and a central bank of three large display windows,
with evidence of historic building materials and workmanship, conveys the feeling of
Moderne commercial architecture.
Association
The building’s association with its original function as commercial premises is retained
through the integrity of elements that comprise its architectural style.
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Evaluation Ƈ The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building is significant for its ability to convey its
association with the trajectory of banking activities in Ponoka, and it typifies a post
World War II trend to remodel older commercial buildings as part of a trend toward
modernization.
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building is significant for its association with the
branch of the Merchant Bank of Canada and its successor the Bank of Montreal, in
Ponoka, which closed in 1934, as well as with the Imperial Bank of Canada during the
1950s. It is equally significant for its association with Jack’s Men’s Wear, a 68-year
clothing business established by Jack Mah Ming in 1935, and later run by his brotherand-sister-in-law Glen and Toy Win Mah Poy, closing circa 2004.
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building has architectural value as the only
extant example in Ponoka of the type of brick masonry design with cast stone features
that characterized the contemporary image of permanence and solidity projected by the
chartered Canadian banks.
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building is a landmark heritage property on a
prominent lot on Railway Avenue. Its imposing streetscape presence contributes to the
physical and visual continuity of Railway Street in Ponoka’s heritage commercial core.
Location
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building stands on its original two lot location
facing south on Railway Street.
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Design
The site retains its much of its design integrity that reflects a two phase functional
historey as embodied in elements such as the brick masonry construction, high parapet
walls with projecting moulded brick detail, projecting pressed metal cornice, brick
parapet walls, central entrance with hood and volutes which typify the design of early
20th Century banks, as well as design elements such as the large display window and a
secondary recessed entrance that resulted from the circa 1949 remodelling of the lower
storey to modernize the clothing store.
The 1951 historic design elements are retained in the large display window, but the
appearance of the secondary recessed entrance, has subsequently been dismantled, the
space reconfigured and the exterior carrara glass removed leaving damaged brick
exposed.
Environment
The Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building continues to be an anchor structure for
the historic commercial core of Ponoka and is in close proximity to a number of historic
buildings that retain their heritage value.
Materials
The retention of the exterior brick walls and parapets, pressed metal cornice, cast stone
sills and lintels, and a cast stone hood supported by volutes, lends a high degree of
material integrity.
This aspect of integrity, although the cement parging protecting the lower brick courses,
is of a traditional type rather than original historic fabric, is unaffected overall by the
most recent changes to the building.
Workmanship
The original workmanship reflects a sophisticated level of skill most particularly in the
original brick masonry construction, which included features such as high brick parapet
walls with projecting moulded brick detail, a brick belt course, cast stone sills and lintels,
a projecting pressed metal cornice, a cast stone hood supported by volutes, and a wide
course .
The overall integrity is not seriously affected by modern workmanship during the
remodelling of the principal façade circa 1949, and subsequent changes to the building
after the restoration of the 1990s.
Feeling
The retention of design and materials and the strong character of the commercial
environment support this aspect of integrity.
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Association
The site retains a strong association with its primary commercial function through its
classical design components and with its secondary retail function though the sign on its
principle façade.
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EvaluationƇ Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building
The heritage value of the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building lies in its historical
association with decades-long efforts of Ponoka women, spearheaded by the Imperial
Order of the Daughters of Empire (IODE) to develop a public library in the town.
The Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building is significant because was planned in
connection with Alberta’s Gold Jubilee in 1955, as the Alberta Government funded
Jubilee cultural projects and increased spending backed by provincial legislation to
improve the province’s libraries.
The site is also significant for its cold war era association with the Town of Ponoka’s
Civil Defence League. From 1956 the basement of the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956)
Building, with direct exterior access through the west door, served as civil defence
headquarters, and was used to store civil defence gear and uniforms.
The architectural significance of the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building lies in its
expression of the new International Style adopted throughout Alberta that reflected the
modernism and progress inherent in the new economic and social climate of the province
as swelling oil revenues by 1949, sparked a province-wide public building program.
Distinguished by its low rectangular massing, hard lines and flat surfaces devoid of
decoration, the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building has typical characteristics and is
a good example of a small scale version of larger buildings in this style.
Location
Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building stands on its original corner lot location at 5039
49 Avenue.
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Design
The retention of this aspect of integrity is exceptionally high, as demonstrated by the
original low rectangular massing, hard lines and flat surfaces devoid of decoration, flat
roof and projecting wide eave, projecting flat-roofed simple canopy supported by metal
columns sheltering an off-set entrance featuring paired doors. The matching sets of steps
on the west and north sides, complete with metal handrails, along with the large window
opening on its principal façade, retain the building’s original appearance.
The only alteration to the design is in the removal of bars across the panes in the front
window opening.
Environment
The Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building is some distance from the original
commercial core of Ponoka in proximity to a number of other modernist public buildings
that reflect the expansion of the town’s services in the post World War II period and
contribute to the varied fabric of Ponoka’s heritage buildings.
Materials
The retention of original materials on this building is almost 100%. Original materials
include the concrete block construction including full concrete basement, concrete block
steps, aggregate stucco wall finish, parged basement finish scored in a random range
pattern to resemble ashlar masonry construction, canopy supported by metal columns,
entrance with matching concrete block steps complete with metal handrails, original
paired wood doors with glass panes.
Workmanship
Feeling
The Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building, due to the retention of its original design
elements, asymmetrical arrangement of main façade with offset entrance, matching steps
on two sides under a projecting canopy, flat roof, paired doors, projecting eaves, a large
front window with four panes, and evidence of historic building materials and
workmanship, conveys the feeling of post-war International Style Modernism on a small
scale.
Association
The building’s association with its original function as a public building is retained
through the integrity of its architectural style.
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Evaluation Ƈ Leland Hotel
The Leland Hotel has heritage value for its historic associations as one of the town’s
three early hotels and with the services it provided mirroring the social and economic
evolution of the town.
The Leland Hotel is also significant for its ability to demonstrate the effect of Alberta’s
changing liquor regulations.
The Leland Hotel is significant as an early example of large scale vernacular wood frame
architecture in Ponoka and for its ability to demonstrate changing architectural taste and
adaptation of wood frame architecture to modern requirements and new building
materials in Ponoka over more than half a century.
Theme E- Landmark or Symbolic Value
The prominent location of the Leland Hotel, its historic associations and continuing
function as hotel and tavern has given it landmark status in Ponoka as one of the earliest
extant buildings in town.
Location
The Leland Hotel stands on its original lot at 5009 50 Avenue facing north onto 50
Avenue.
Design
The site retains sufficient design integrity as embodied in its scale and massing, hipped
roof with gable dormer windows, the row of upper storey double hung single pane
windows, and the glass on its principal façade. In addition the retention of the rectangular
shape of the 1952 west end addition on the principal façade, as well as the rear addition
of 1904, enlarged in the 1950s, retains the overall evolution of the site’s design that
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demonstrates changing architectural tastes and design in response to modern
requirements. The verandah is a modern addition to the façade introduced as an
enhancement measure during the Main Street project in 1996. While the glass side lights
to the lower storey windows, once covered, were exposed during the Main Street work
program, the original siding on the west elevation was covered by stucco in 1996.
Missing elements include the tall red brick chimney that was located on the east end of
the roof, and the glass block window on the façade of the 1952 café addition. Several of
the windows on the east elevation have been covered by wood shutters.
The current vertical large Leland Hotel sign attached to the building is not original, but
closely matches the size, design, general appearance and position of the sign in relation to
the building façade, which was evident circa 1952.
Environment
The Leland Hotel continues to be at the commercial centre of Ponoka, an environment
that retains a substantial historic core.
Materials
The retention of original wood soffits, window trim, scrolled brackets, 1938 stucco,
contribute sufficient integrity to the exterior of the 1901 building, and the concrete blocks
of the 1952 extension retain their integrity from that period, to convey the site’s historic
significance.
Workmanship
The workmanship reflects a basic level of skill evident in the wood frame construction
and subsequent alterations to the façade circa 1952. The integrity of the workmanship has
been somewhat undermined over the last 100 years of ongoing alterations of the building,
including the re-pointing of mortar in the 1996 Main Street Program.
Feeling
The retention of the basic design and traditional materials evident in its unusual hip roof
and distinctive gable roofed dormer windows, the 1938 stucco finish, and remaining circa
1952 glass block window elements, along with the contrasting scale, massing and
construction methods of the addition on the rear of the building, convey its significance
as an example of early hotel design. Together with its contrasting concrete block
extension these features convey the feeling of changing architectural taste and adaptation
of wood frame architecture to modern requirements and new building materials in
Ponoka over more than half a century.
Association
The building retains a strong association with its original hotel function that has remained
unchanged to the present.
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Evaluation Ƈ Capitol Theatre
The heritage value of the Capitol Theatre, constructed in 1949, lies in its historical
association with the progression of entertainment in Ponoka. Located immediately
adjacent to the Empress Theatre (1912), it marked the shift from black and white to
colour. Privately owned by entrepreneur Hector La Brie, the Capital Theatre opened on
Boxing Day 1949 with great fanfare and a congratulatory telegram from Bob Hope in
Hollywood, with “Oh What a Beautiful Doll,” starring June Haver and Mark Stevens in
Technicolor. The thoroughly modern interior with 528 upholstered seats, an 18 x 13 foot
screen, and, for the hearing impaired and mothers in the cry room, ear phones connected
to the modern sound system, reflected the improvement of theatre facilities in the post
war period. For more than 60 years generations of movie-goers have appreciated the
Capital Theatre’s traditional ambience as they watch the latest movie releases available
for small town audiences.
The architectural significance of the Capitol Theatre, designed by Edmonton Architect
Martland and Aberdeen, and constructed by Western Builders Ltd. of Red Deer, lies in its
cast-in-place concrete construction, its inherent functionalism and stark lines influenced
by International Style architecture.
Location
The capitol Theatre stands on its original location at 5019 50 Avenue.
Design
The retention of this aspect of integrity is high, as demonstrated by its scale and massing,
the stark lines influenced by International Style architecture evident in the rectangular
moulded outline of the block of recessed windows in the upper part of principal façade,
the horizontal division of the upper and lower levels by a wide aluminum band, the
central recessed entrance with stepped columns that continues the emphasis on sharp
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edges, flanked by poster display panels on the north side, and a store front window with
associated separate street entrance to the retail bay, on the south side. The retention of the
interior configuration of the upper floor, comprising stairway access from ground level,
residential suite and projection room, speaks to the function of the building and its
continuing use.
Environment
The Capitol Theatre is located at the edge of Ponoka’s heritage commercial core and it
demonstrates the modernisation of the town’s architecture during the post World War II
period and contributes to the varied fabric of Ponoka’s heritage buildings.
Materials
The retention of original materials on this building is high. Original materials include the
cast-in-place concrete walls, with board impressions clearly visible on the west, north and
south elevations, stucco and stone veneer cladding, aluminum frame display panels, all
contribute to the strong material integrity of the exterior. This aspect of integrity,
although some new fabric has been introduced, is overall only somewhat affected by the
restoration measures undertaken in 1999 under the Ponoka Main Street Project. These
included removing a 1960s slip cover panelling, the installation of tempered spandrel
glass panel system in imitation of the original cararra glass, the cleaning, repair and
consolidation of concrete substrate, the cleaning and repair of upper level of principal
façade, and emphasizing of stucco groves, repair of marquee and neon sign, replacement
of aluminum band, and installation of aluminum frame poster display panels.
Workmanship
Feeling
The Capitol Theatre due to the retention of its original design elements, evident in the
rectangular moulded outline of block of recessed windows upper part of principal façade,
and the horizontal division of the upper and lower levels by a wide aluminum band, the
configuration of its exterior appearance including the central recessed entrance with
stepped columns, and back-lit marquee and neon sign; traditional building materials and
typical workmanship evident in its cast-in place concrete construction; clearly convey the
feeling of functionalism inherent to theatre design influenced by the stark lines of
International Style architecture.
Association
The building’s retains a strong association with its original function as a movie theatre
through the integrity of elements that comprise its functional architectural, and because it
has been in continuous use as a movie theatre using traditional projection equipment to
the present.
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Evaluation Ƈ T. J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building
The T.J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building is a significant structure that illustrates the
development of commercial activity in the town of Ponoka. Its brick masonry
construction in 1919 to house the well established clothier business of T. J. Durkin,
illustrates the adoption of fire proof building materials in Ponoka, As a specialised men’s’
clothing store the T. J. Durkin/Green Ltd. Building housed a wide range of clothes
including shirts, hats, shoes, underwear, suits, and promised quality, style, custom
measurement and service for over three decades.
The Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building is primarily significant for its association with clothier
T. K Durkin, as well as his successors in business, Mike Green, and later Harry
Friedman. Durkin was an early settler in Ponoka, and opened a successful men’s clothing
store on Chipman Avenue in 1903. Durkin was a typical leading businessman, serving as
sometime mayor, chairman of the school board, and president of the Board of Trade,
before leaving town in 1929.
The architectural significance of the T. J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building lies primarily in
its representation of good local commercial brick masonry construction. Contractors
Amudson and Morrison incorporated decorative brick courses and stuccoed coins on the
distinctive stepped parapet wall giving the building a relatively sophisticated appearance.
The symmetrical design of the street façade incorporated large store front windows
resting on bulkheads to display goods to advantage with a central recessed doorway.
Location
The T.J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building stands on its original lot facing south onto 50
(Chipman) Avenue.
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Design
The site retains its design integrity as embodied in elements such as the stepped parapet
wall with decorative brick courses and stuccoed coins, brick pilasters, symmetrical store
front on the street façade with recessed entrance featuring a wood door with single pane
inset, flanked by large store front windows resting on bulkheads with inset panels; a
transom window with eight lights, and a retractable awing.
While some of these elements, such as the brick raised parapet wall (covered by paint*
and later sheet metal cladding) and the pilasters and panelled bulkheads (covered by
epoxy-coated angelstone), transom window and retractable awning, were concealed or
removed in the 1950s and later, they were restored in 1997.
*The historic signage painted on the brick façade during Green’s ownership has been
removed.
Environment
The T.J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building continues to be at the commercial centre of
Ponoka, an environment that retains a substantial historic core.
Materials
The retention of the exterior brick walls and parapet with decorative elements, transom
windows, large store front windows set on wood bulkheads with inset panels contribute
to the strong material integrity of the exterior. This aspect of integrity, although several
elements (such as the flashing, moulding and drip caps, and retractable awning, are of a
new material rather than historic fabric), is unaffected overall by the major restoration
measures undertaken in 1997 under the Ponoka Main Street Project. These included
removal of modern cladding materials (including epoxy-coated angelston over the brick
pilasters and wooden bulkheads, and the metal sheet covering on the parapet wall and
modern awning); the disassembling of the upper façade, cleaning and re-pointing and
reassembling of brick masonry –this reconstitution required the substitution of new bricks
in the detailing such as the soldier courses ; the repairing and re-stuccoing of the coins;
the replacement of the original wooden bulkheads and inset panels moldings and trim; the
installation of new flashing, moulding and drip caps, a band of faux transom windows,
and a retractable awning following historic designs.
Workmanship
Most of the workmanship reflects the construction methods and level of skills evident in
buildings of the day. The integrity of the workmanship has been negligibly affected
during the restoration of the building.
Feeling
Sufficient retention of design and traditional materials evident in its distinctive brick
masonry construction, original design elements, such as the stepped brick parapet wall,
decorative brick courses, the recessed store entrance, to convey its significance as a
representative example of commercial architecture in Ponoka.
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Association
The building retains a strong association with its original commercial function that has
remained unchanged to the present.
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Evaluation Ƈ Ponoka Herald Building
Theme A – Theme/Activity/Cultural practice/Event.
The Ponoka Herald Building is significant for its association with the town’s long
running newspaper, the Ponoka Herald (1900-1997), which operated from this building
from 1906 to 1953.
The Ponoka Herald Building has a significant association with owner and editor, Scottish
pressman, George “Scottie” Gordon, who arrived in Ponoka in 1904 and bought the
newspaper as a going concern in December 1905. For the next thirty-four years as editor
working from this building Gordon played a critical role in the town, bringing world
news and personal reports on provincial news stories and editorials on local issues and
concerns in the town and surrounding districts. Gordon also served the town as
postmaster from 1913-1946, on town council and as mayor. When George’s son John
took over the newspaper in 1938, he continued to operate from the same facility until
1953, when he sold the business, which moved to a new building constructed on 50
Street, until it folded in 1997.
The architectural significance of the Ponoka Herald Building lies in its representation of
classic boom town front wood frame architecture, of which it is the oldest remaining
example in Ponoka.
Location
The Ponoka Herald Building stands on its original lot at 5010 51 Avenue.
Design
The site retains sufficient design integrity as embodied the boom town front with metal
capped wood cornice, wood trim corner boards, and two window openings. While the
boom town front, clad with wood siding, featuring two single sash double-hung windows,
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(covered by stucco) wood trim, were concealed or removed, they were restored in 1997
under the Main Street Program. The original windows on the upper façade seem, as best
as can be determined, to have featured a 2 over 2 pane double hung sash arrangement.
The recessed entranceway is somewhat modified from its appearance evident in a historic
photograph from the early 1950s, notably in the large four pane display window
arrangement. The wood bulkheads, not visible in the historic photo, were covered by
Roman Brick by the 1990s, and were replicated in 1997.
Environment
The Ponoka Herald Building continues to be at the commercial centre of Ponoka, an
environment that retains a substantial historic core in the immediate vicinity.
Materials
The retention of the exterior wood boom town front contributes to the strong material
integrity of the exterior. Although several elements are of a new material rather than
historic fabric, the major restoration measures undertaken in 1997 under the Ponoka Main
Street Project, have some overall affect on this aspect of integrity. Those included
removal of stucco on the upper façade, and roman brick veneer on the lower façade,
installation and painting of historic style bevelled siding on upper façade, restoration of
the window openings on upper façade, replication of storefront recessed entrance wood
bulkheads and installation of thermal panes windows in the store front window openings.
Workmanship
The integrity of the workmanship has been affected during the restoration of the building.
Feeling
Sufficient retention of design and materials, in particular its distinctive boom town front
design conveys the feeling of wood frame commercial architecture that characterised
Ponoka’s earliest buildings.
Association
The building retains a strong association with an original commercial function.
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Evaluation Ƈ The Ponoka Meat Market Building
The Ponoka Meat Market Building is significant for its historical association as mixeduse premises in connection with the F.E. Algar Building on the same lot, and the historey
of Ponoka’s meat and butchering businesses.
The Ponoka Meat Market Building is primarily significant for its association with butcher
Fritz Bachor, long time district farmer and town butcher who arrived in the Ponoka area
in 1909. Bachor purchased Ponoka’s Pioneer Meat Market in 1909 and ran it
intermittently in competition with several other butchers in town, including the imperial
Meat Market and the Quality Meat Market, over the next two decades, going in and out
of the meat market business in tandem with his farming operation west of Ponoka. In
1935 he rented and renovated one of the buildings on the F. E. Algar Building lot and
opened it as a butcher shop, which he operated under the name Ponoka Meat Market until
1940, the year he died.
The architectural significance of the Ponoka Meat Market Building lies primarily in its
boom town front intended to lend a sense of importance to the simple wood frame gableroofed storage shed and give it an imposing presence on the street. Set on a concrete
foundation, it features an offset angled slightly recessed corner entrance delineated by
wood trim, with concrete steps, a wood door with glass pane, and a small transom
window. Its retail function from 1935 is signified through its large display window east
of the entrance, while the mix of siding types and patched appearance of former openings
indicates its former storage and other uses.
Theme E – Landmark and Symbolic Value
The Ponoka Meat Market is valued as a town landmark structure because of its size and
architectural design and because it is believed to be associated with Ponoka’s early
commercial development.
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Location
The Ponoka Meat Market Building stands on its original location at 5005 51 Avenue
bordering the alley at the rear of a lot shared with the F.E. Algar Building, facing north
onto 51 Avenue.
Design
The site retains its design integrity from 1935 as embodied in the boom town front,
asymmetrical design of principal façade featuring an offset angled slightly recessed
corner entrance delineated by wood trim, with concrete steps, a wood door with glass
pane, and a small transom window.
Environment
The PonokaMeat Market Building makes a significant contribution to the streetscape that
includes the associated F.E. Algar building on the same lot and several other heritage
buildings at the commercial centre of Ponoka.
Materials
The retention of the wood frame construction, concrete foundation and steps, wood trim,
a wood door with glass pane, and a small transom window, the mix of siding types and
patched appearance of former openings, contribute to the strong material integrity of the
exterior.
This aspect of integrity is unaffected overall by the largely superficial stabilization or
what were termed heritage awareness enhancement measures undertaken in 1998 under
the Ponoka Main Street Project. These included removing loose paint from the siding,
repairing with metal patches, replacement of wood trim, placement of storefront window
glazing, painting and restoration of ghost lettering on the false front.
Workmanship
Most of the workmanship reflects basic construction methods and level of skill evident in
buildings of the day. The integrity of the workmanship has been negligibly affected
during the restoration of the building.
Feeling
The high retention of design and traditional materials evident in its rectangular shape
wood frame construction with distinctive boom town front and an unusual slightly
recessed angled entrance, conveys the feeling of commercial architecture that
characterised Ponoka’s early buildings.
Association
The building retains a strong association with its original commercial function through its
repainted ghost signage.
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Evaluation Ƈ CPR Dam (Battle River, directly east of 50 Avenue).
Theme A - Theme/Activity/Cultural practice /Event
The CPR Dam is significant for its association with recreational activities, most notably,
fishing, boating, and swimming, on the Battle River.
The heritage value of the CPR dam on the Battle River on Ponoka lies in its association
with railway transportation and the Canadian Pacific Railway’s depot and associated
railway structures, notably the water tower used to service the steam locomotives on the
Calgary-Edmonton line.
The CPR Dam is architecturally significant as a rare example of early 20th century weir
design.
Theme E –Landmark/Symbolic value
The CPR Dam is valued by Ponoka residents as a landmark for its association with the
early years of Ponoka’s settlement, recognized by the development of a picnic spot and
interpretive signage on the river bank.
Location
The CPR Dam is in its original location in the Battle River, directly east of 50 Avenue.
Design
The retention of this aspect of integrity is high, as demonstrated by the framework of
wooden piles and large beams.
Environment
The CPR Dam is located on a bend in the Battle River, directly east of the end of 50
Avenue, at the edge of Ponoka’s heritage commercial core and it demonstrates the
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connection of the Battle River to the town, and its past sawmill and railway history, and
contributes to the varied components of Ponoka’s heritage fabric.
Materials
The retention of original materials on this building is high. Original materials include the
wooden piles, horizontal beams, vertical planks, and metal bolts, all contributing to a
strong material integrity.
Workmanship
Feeling
The CPR Dam due to the retention of its original design elements, evident in the wooden
framework, traditional building materials and typical workmanship clearly convey the
feeling of early 20th century weir design.
Association
The CPR Dam retains a strong association with its original function as it continues to
function as a weir on the river.
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Ƈ Photo documentation & Preliminary Condition Assessment
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Ƈ F.E. Algar Building (5020 50 Street)
South-east elevation.
East elevation – primary store front entrance.
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Interior- detail of transom window above display window, north-east corner.
Basement – foundation detail, March 2010.
Preliminary Condition Assessment:
Building appears to be in good condition.
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Ƈ Ponoka Community Rest Room (5014 51 Avenue)
North elevation.
Detail – principal façade.
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Detail principal façade –deterioration of stucco band.
Detail of flashing – principal façade
Some deterioration of stucco band; deck at rear of building, although not a CDE, should
be assessed.
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ƇThe Bird Drug Company Ltd. Building (5006 51 Avenue)
North –west elevation.
Detail of bulkhead, step and metal column at primary entrance.
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Detail of principal façade.
Detail of principal façade- crack along the addition line, east side.
There are problems with the deterioration of brick masonry on all facades, including a
major crack along the line of the east addition, which require assessment.
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Ƈ The Sweet Block (5027 50Avenue)
Stairs to upper storey.
Main central corridor, upper floor.
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Detail of exterior wall, inside suite on upper floor.
Fireplace in residential suite at rear of building.
Building appears to be in good condition and is carefully maintained.
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Ƈ Ponoka Brick School (5004 54 Street)
Detail of corner pier.
Windows and brick course on south elevation.
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Drainage system, north elevation
Drainage system, north elevation
Stucco parging needs attention on all sides of the building. The problems with the
drainage system should be addressed.
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Ƈ Allen’s Furniture Store (5006 Railway Street)
South-east corner of principal façade.
Detail of wood cornice and brackets.
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South-west elevation, view from alley.
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Ƈ The Safeway Store/Cash Foods (5026 50Avenue)
Detail of brick pilaster capped by a cross gable decorative finial with matching faux pan
tile to those on roof.
North elevation, view from alley.
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Detail of wood cornice. Principal façade.
Some signs of rust from tiles, and rot evident on cornice.
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ƇThirsk 5c to $1 Store (5019 50 Avenue)
Principal elevation.
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ƇThe Merchant Bank/Jack’s Men’s Wear Building (5012 50 Avenue)
South-east elevation.
Detail of central stepped entrance with cast stone hood supported by volutes.
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Detail of window cast stone lintels and sills.
Detail of principal façade showing projecting pressed metal cornice, and the edge of
painted decorative brick belt course serving as a sign band.
Cornice is showing signs of rusting and sign band needs paint. Renovation is underway
on the north side of principal façade.
.
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Ƈ Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) Building ( 5039 49 Avenue)
North elevation.
North-west elevation.
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Window detail west elevation.
Detail of planter at entrance.
Building is generally in good condition, requires painting. Owner notes that the roof
needs attention.
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Ƈ The Leland Hotel (5009 50Avenue)
South elevation.
Detail of entrance to west addition.
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Detail of gable dormers, north elevation.
The building suffers from a lack of maintenance and requires paint etc. No visible
evidence of structural problems.
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Ƈ Ponoka Capitol Theatre (4904 50 Street)
North-west elevation.
Detail of cast-in place concrete wall, west elevation.
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Detail of south elevation with evidence of wood form impressions.
Detail of principal façade.
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“Dominion Sound” projector in projection room, upper level.
The principal façade appears to be in good condition. The cast in-stone construction, at
rear of building is showing some signs of deterioration.
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Ƈ T.J. Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building (5012 50 Avenue)
Detail of brick courses and transom window, principal façade.
Detail of parapet wall, principal façade.
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Detail of bulkhead at entrance.
Brick pilaster and parged base, principal façade.
There is some deterioration of parging at base of pilasters, and base of one of the wood
bulkheads is showing some deterioration.
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ƇPonoka Herald Building (5010 51Avenue)
Streetscape looking north-west.
West elevation.
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Detail, principal façade.
Detail, upper half-storey principal façade.
The building appears to be in good condition and is well maintained. No detailed
structural information available, since the 1990s. The CDE original siding on the west
elevation is weathered and needs some attention.
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Ƈ Ponoka Meat Market Building (5005 51 Avenue)
North-east elevation.
South-west elevation.
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Detail, west wall.
Detail north-east corner at entrance.
Preliminary Condition Assessment: The condition of this building was recorded in the
late 1990s during the main street project as having unresolved preservation issues—
ongoing settlement and decay of floor structure and rising damp deteriorating the
unheated interior. No measures have been undertaken since then.
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Ƈ CPR Dam (Battle River, directly east of 50 Avenue)
Stone pile at east bank.
Detail of framework, looking northeast.
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Detail, showing ballast between rows of piles.
The dam is in very poor condition and might be regarded as an archaeological site.
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ƇPlaces of Interest List
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ƇPlaces of Interest List
The initial Places of Interest Short List had 17 sites. Of these, 2 were dropped and 3 were
added. A total of 16 have been placed on the Inventory and the 2 profiled below were
evaluated but found to be lacking in integrity.
Evaluation Ƈ Ponoka Cold Storage Service Building (5023 51 Avenue)
The Ponoka Cold Storage Service Building is significant for its provision of freezer
lockers that could be rented by Ponoka residents to store frozen food. They were
accessible during business hours by customers who had their own keys, at a time when
few people had fridges.
The heritage value of the Ponoka Cold Storage Service Building lies in its historical
association with Angus A. McLeod who operated a slaughter house in Riverside on the
east side of the Battle River in conjunction with his retail butcher shop and freezer locker
service in the Ponoka Cold Storage Service Building.
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Theme C – style
The Ponoka Cold Storage Service Building constructed in 1941 is a representative
expression of the Moderne style adopted in a number of commercial buildings in Ponoka.
Distinguished by its low rectangular massing on the principal facade, with a
complementary rectangular addition (1946) on the west side forming an L shaped
structure, its hard lines and flat surfaces, the architectural significance of the Ponoka Cold
Storage Service Building lies in the functionalism inherent in Moderne design.
Location
The Ponoka Cold Storage Building stands on its original location at 5019 50 Avenue.
Design
The retention of this aspect of integrity is low, and although the original vision is evident
in its low massing with strong horizontal and vertical lines, the design elements that
characterized its principal façade such as the patterns of fenestration and openings, are no
longer extant. The south elevation facing the alley at the rear maintains its original
design, windows and wood trim, as well as the paint scheme and colour on the stucco
band below the window sills.
Alterations to the principal façade carried out in 1999, including the introduction of
curved window reveals and the repainting of the lower re-stuccoed band, further altered
the appearance of the building that had already been substantially changed through the
reconfiguration and replacement of the original multi-pane windows with single panes at
an earlier date.
An additional missing element is a neon Ponoka Cold Storage Service sign.
Environment
The Ponoka Cold Storage Service Building is located in of Ponoka’s commercial core
and its proximity to older heritage buildings has partial value as a demonstration of the
expansion and modernisation of the town’s architecture during the 1940s, but makes a
limited contribution to the varied fabric of Ponoka’s heritage buildings.
Materials
The overall retention of original materials on this building is low. Original materials
include the concrete block construction, stucco finish, door and window frames on the
south rear elevation. Enhancement measures undertaken in 1997-98 under the Ponoka
Main Street Project included the rebuilding of the louvered vents in sheet metal, and the
installation of sheet metal flashing.
Workmanship
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Feeling
The Ponoka Cold Storage Service Building due to an insufficient retention of its original
design elements, most notably the patterns of fenestration and openings on the principal
façade—despite their retention on the rear of the building—does not overall adequately
convey the feeling of Moderne commercial architecture.
Association
The building maintains its association with its original function through its continuation
as commercial premises.
Integrity Statement
The Ponoka Cold Storage Service Building does not retain sufficient integrity to convey
its significance. The substantial alteration to the principal façade since its 1941
construction and 1948 addition has resulted in the removal of important character
defining elements and it does not adequately maintain the aspects of integrity required to
communicate its heritage value.
Recommendation: It is recommended that while the Ponoka Cold Storage Service
Building does not merit municipal designation as a Municipal Historic Resource, it
should continue to be commemorated in other ways such as through the interpretive
plaque program and the Ponoka Walking Tour. The additional research done on the
historey of this building and its function for the Municipal Heritage Inventory Project
should be incorporated into further interpretive endeavours.
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Evaluation Ƈ Royal Hotel
The Royal Hotel has heritage value for its historic associations as one of the town’s three
early hotels with the services it provided mirroring the social and economic evolution of
the town through the 20th Century.
Theme D- Landmark- and Symbolic Value
The prominent location of the Royal Hotel, its historic associations and continuing
function as hotel and tavern has given it a cherished landmark status in Ponoka as one of
the earliest extant buildings in town.
Location
The Royal Hotel stands on its original location at 5019 50 Avenue.
Design
The retention of this aspect of integrity is low, and although the historic massing vision is
evident, the design elements that characterized its principal façade such as original
balconies, or later stucco Moderne lines are no longer evident, and new features such as
the shutters, and parapet walls, as well as alteration of the window openings, are
additions from the late 1990s.
Environment
The Royal Hotel is located on a prominent corner in Ponoka’s commercial core and its
proximity to other heritage buildings has value as part of the massing of the heritage
character of Ponoka.
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Materials
The overall retention of original materials on this building is low. Original materials
included brick veneer and then stucco cladding by the 1950s. The addition of non-historic
materials including wood shutters and wood shakes along parapets as well as a stone
veneer base to stucco cladding date from the late 1990s, as well as the rebuilding of the
louvered vents in sheet metal, and the installation of sheet metal flashing.
Workmanship
The workmanship reflects the local practical workmanship of several periods.
Feeling
The Royal Hotel due to an insufficient retention of its original design elements, does not
overall adequately convey the feeling of its stylistic changes since 1901 that would
convey its historic and architectural significance.
Association
The building maintains its association with its original function through its continuation
as a hotel and tavern to the present.
Integrity Statement
The Royal Hotel does not retain sufficient integrity to convey its significance. The
multiple alterations to the principal façade since its 1901 construction has resulted in the
removal of important character defining elements and it does not adequately maintain the
aspects of integrity required to communicate its heritage value.
Recommendation: It is recommended that while the Royal Hotel Building does not
merit municipal designation as a Municipal Historic Resource, it should continue to be
commemorated in other ways such as through the interpretive plaque program and the
Ponoka Walking Tour. The additional research done on the history of this building and its
function for the Municipal Heritage Inventory Project should be incorporated into
interpretive endeavours and any further revisiting of its heritage status.
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Ƈ The following 4 sites have not undergone detailed evaluation and
remain on the places of interest list:
ƇMaple Leaf Garage (north-east corner of 50 Street and 51 Avenue)
ƇImperial Bank of Canada (5002 51Avenue )
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ƇBill’s Billiard Hall (5002 50 Avenue)
ƇPonoka/Pharmacy/Ranks Drug Store (50 Avenue)
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Ƈ Context Paper
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Introduction - Overview
The townsite of Ponoka is located in a fertile valley on the west bank of the Battle River
in the lush aspen parkland of central Alberta, once home to the Cree and Blackfoot First
Nations. Its natural advantages of good agricultural land, a plentiful supply of timber and
water, proximity to the river, and the well-established Calgary and Edmonton Trail, and
made it a desirable location for urban settlement. As a point on the Calgary and
Edmonton Railway (a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway), from 1891, its early
growth accelerated from the turn of the 20th Century, and marked a quick transition from
log to small roughly built boom town front wood frame structures and larger frame
buildings constructed from commercial lumber. A concentrated commercial hub was
established with the railway depot at its core, surrounded by homes, churches and a
school. In 1911 the Alberta Government opened a psychiatric hospital, the Ponoka
Asylum, later known as the Provincial Mental Hospital, nearby giving the town’s
development an added impetus. As it grew year by year it had all the characteristic of a
frontier town, including booterism from an ambitious town council composed of
prominent businessmen, a newspaper that tirelessly promoted the community, muddy
streets, wood sidewalks, a transient population, and an eye to the future. Devastating fires
ravaged the commercial centre in the early years but the town rebuilt bigger and better.
Ponoka had emerged by 1910-11 as a well-established town with impressive buildings,
educational and religious facilities, well- developed social networks, a tradition of
benevolent societies and recreational opportunities.
The town’s buildings underwent a number of changes in the next decade, as the emphasis
switched from getting things up and running to long term planning for stability. Having
suffered several destructive fires, Ponoka, like many other Alberta towns, became
focused not just on fire fighting but also fire prevention. A number of established
businesses decided to erect new premises, and new businesses opening often chose to
build in brick. The new commercial premises not only reduced the risk of fire taking hold
and spreading but also introduced a new architectural style and demonstrated evolving
building skills, which brought a greater sense of permanence. The economic, social and
political life of the town continued against the back drop of war in Europe, 1914-1918.
Despite the jubilation of Armistice Day the Spanish influenza brought a bleak note to the
closing months of the year.
The 1920s appear to have been years of prosperity for Ponoka and district; an increased
range of consumer goods were available in the town. The decade was spurred by a
burgeoning population, a demand for housing and high building material costs. The
evident expansion of Ponoka’s commercial core was bolstered by a thriving farm
economy that increasingly brought more famers to town. The horse and rig gave way to
the automobile on Ponoka’s streets, although farmers continued to haul grain by wagon
and sleigh. The adoption of the automobile brought a new building: the full service
garage. The town’s infrastructure improved, and beautification efforts were apparent in
the planting of trees.
The early 1930s, a time of world wide depression and a collapse in grain prices on the
prairies saw a cooling of optimism in Ponoka. There was cut-throat retail competition in
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the grocery trade, as the modernization of the grocery business followed the opening of a
Safeway store in Ponoka in 1929. In the early 1930s farmers had poor crops and little
money to spend, depressing business in all commercial sectors. The town had trouble
collecting taxes, and limited funs for infrastructure and maintenance. Civic employees
took a hefty pay cut. The seriousness of the situation was reinforced by the closure of
Ponoka’s branch of the Bank of Montreal in December 1934.
By the mid 1930s things began to improve, signified by the remodelling of older
buildings in the town, usually through the use of new stucco cladding, and by the
formation of a chamber of commerce in 1935. A spate of building soon followed, and in
1937 the construction of the architecturally designed Sweet Block on Chipman Avenue
brought the aesthetic of early Moderne architecture to Ponoka. The use of unadorned flat
surfaces with stream lines, which incorporated stucco as a design element, was repeated
on several other buildings including the Ponoka Cold Storage Service building that
opened on Donald Avenue in 1941.
The war years, 1939-45, were a busy time around Ponoka. Farmers attempted to fill the
demand for their produce even as their labour force depleted. Business hummed in the
town’s shops and garages as they tried to supply the famers with new machines and
repair old ones to get the work done. Elevators were filled to capacity in 1942-43.
The end of the war brought a new era: modern Ponoka. The first sign was the installation
of utilities. The streets were disarray as natural gas lines were installed in 1946 and water
and sewer lines in 1948. By 1950 most of the town’s buildings were serviced and the
outhouses in the alleys were gone for ever. Following the discovery of oil at Leduc in
1947, unprecedented revenues poured into the provincial coffers that percolated down to
municipalities. A new emphasis on public buildings was evident at both the provincial
and municipal level, and another architectural style was evident—International Style
Modernism. Returned service men took up houses in Ponoka’s new subdivision, and a
new urbanism was evident in Ponoka. Change was in the air everywhere, from a changed
attitude towards alcohol and Alberta’s liquor laws, to a renewed passion for cars, and new
movies. All of these changes were reflected in Ponoka’s built environment by 1960.
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From Siding to Boom Town, 1891 to 1910
In 1891 the Calgary and Edmonton Railway established Siding 14, soon renamed
Ponoka, with station grounds on SE 35-Twp49-Range 25, west of the 4th Meridian some
80 miles south of Edmonton. In 1885 long before the railway snaked north, in the
aftermath of the Riel Rebellion a military post as Fort Ostell was established for 50 days
near the Battle River. When the Calgary-Edmonton Trail was surveyed in 1886 it was rerouted much closer to the banks of the Battle River than its previous route had been—a
factor that would have a significant bearing on the future town of Ponoka. Designated the
first public highway in what would become the province of Alberta, the C&E Trail
served freighters hauling goods and the mail north to Edmonton through country not yet
settled during the late 1880s. The coming of the railway changed the landscape very
rapidly as series of town sites were strung out from Calgary to Edmonton.
The Dominion Land Survey sent an army of surveyors to subdivide townships for
homesteads needed most urgently needed near the railway line as the first waves of
Canadian and immigrant settlers arrived. In the Ponoka area, Cook Meyer was appointed
official land guide in 1899 and homesteads were taken up rapidly. In early 1901, The
Ponoka Herald published a copy of a letter from Edmund Christie, one of Ponoka’s new
citizens, to his home town newspaper in Iowa, praising his new home and the verdant
land surrounding the town that had already been taken up between 5 and 10 miles on all
sides. In spring 1900 when Christie had arrived, he found one small log hotel, two
magnificent general stores, a school house, and a lumber yard. But, Christie noted,
“Ponoka was not content with what she was. New buildings commenced to go up on
every hand, the sound of the hammer was heard on every side, settlers were coming in on
each train from all parts of the compass, mainly from the states and now in les than eight
months Ponoka can boast of a population of 270.” 1 CPR station agent, J. West, sold
town lots, and the Dominion Lands Office dealt with homestead entries. In the four
months preceding July 12, 1901, 50,000 acres of land, comprising homesteads, CPR,
Hudson’s Bay Company land, and portions of surrendered Indian Reserve land, had been
taken up by settlers around the burgeoning settlement. 2
The town of Ponoka, orientated to the railway line, was shaped by the C&E Railway’s
townsite survey and it featured wide alleys running behind each lot. In 1896 the Calgary
and Edmonton railway engaged Jacob Doupe, Dominion Land Surveyor, to lay out a
townsite directly west of the station grounds. He laid out two blocks on a variation of
standard railway linear plan with a T shaped alley running behind the lots facing Railway
Street. Chipman Avenue bound the blocks lying to the north, which were divided by
Donald Avenue. 3 In 1900, Doupe returned to layout two more blocks south of Chipman
Avenue, as well as four additional blocks to the west, lying north and south of Herchmer
Avenue. 4 The following year, 1901, A. P. Patrick, DLS laid out further blocks expanding
1
Ponoka Herald, February 19, 1901.
Ponoka Herald, July 12, 1901. The end of the settlement period was signified by the closure of the
Dominion Lands office in October 1915 due to a lack of transactions officially marked the end of the
settlement era (Ponoka Herald, Oct 19/1916.).
3
Alberta Director of Surveys Office, Ponoka, Subdivision of part of Sec. 4, Tp.43R.25.W4m,1986.
4
Alberta, Director of Surveys Office. Addition to Ponoka, 1900.
2
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the town site some considerable distance. Railway Street facing the CPR depot was the
principal thoroughfare and Chipman Avenue emerged as the main commercial street
anchored by the imposing Royal Hotel, constructed in 1900, where it intersected with
Railway Street. 5
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. This post card of the CPR depot was likely taken circa 1914
A dray service was associated with CPR depot for delivering goods to the stores in town
for over 50 years.
The CPR depot was built in 1892 on a plan designated CPR-x at a cost of $2,657.00 6 It
also served as section house in the early years. In 1905 the CPR put in a wooden weir
across a bend in the river to create a large pool of water from which to draw to fill the
steam locomotive engines that stopped to fill up. The first water tank was replaced by a
new larger one in fall 1906, along with a windmill for pumping water up from the river
below. 7 The Ponoka Herald noted that further improvements for the station were planned
in 1906 including enlarging of the waiting room and raising the platform. 8 By the
following summer the low lying areas on either side of the station had been built up
improving the appearance of the station. 9
Proximity to the Battle River fuelled Ponoka’s building boom as two sawmills were set
up in close proximity to the town. They sawed lumber from logs floated down the Battle
River from the timber reserves of the west country, providing lumber to build the town.
5
Alberta, Director of Surveys Office, Addition to Ponoka, 1901.
Les Kozma, The Railway Station in Alberta , forthcoming.
7
A third water tank was built in 1923, Ponoka Herald, May 3, 1923.
8
Ponoka Herald November 2, 23, 1906.
9
Ponoka Herald, July 25, 1907.
6
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The Truman Bros. set up the Ponoka Saw Mill by summer 1901 and employed 26 men
and three teams. By September they were cutting 16,000 board feet a day. 10 In May 1902
Dick Bros put a boom across the river just below the town in preparation for a log drive
and to run their mill for a second season. 11 Simmington and Dalton, carpenters and
contractors, offered their skills for fine inside work and W. E. Turner & Co, dealers in
Native and Coast Lumber, the first in a series of lumberyards to serve Ponoka, had
sashes, doors, mouldings, shingles and lath on hand, for those who wanted to finish their
new and sizeable residences houses in town stylishly. 12 By August 1902 ten more
buildings were under construction in the town. Ponoka quickly grew from a few log
buildings constructed before the turn of the century—which included C.D. Algar’s 1895
general store and post office established in 1897, a school (1896)—to a small village by
1899 with wood frame construction commercial premises and houses. It acquired town
status with a population of over 600 by October 1904. 13
Ponoka had all the commercial services characteristic of a small town— hardware store,
several general stores, livery stables, meat market, harness shop, millinery store, furniture
store, implement dealers, real estate agent, even an undertaker and a jeweller as early as
1902. A large frame school was built in 1901, and two churches by 1902. The earliest
hotel was Ponoka House, and then, in December 1900, the imposing Royal Hotel, facing
Railway Street opened, followed by the adjacent Leland Hotel which opened in October
1901 on Chipman Avenue. The Alberta Temperance Hotel, constructed on Chipman
Avenue as a boarding house in 1900, was further competition for the citizens’ patronage,
until it closed in 1920. Almost immediately the two main hotels required expansion. The
completion of an addition to the Leyland Hotel, constructed in late summer 1904 was
marked by the holding of a dinner by the Ladies Guild of the Church of England. 14 The
Royal Hotel, which had already changed hands once, was also having improvements
done that summer. In 1905 the Royal Hotel under went a major transformation from a
gable roofed wood siding clad building into a larger structure with an additional storey
and a brick veneer cladding with an addition to include a billiard room. 15 The Royal
Hotel, and its competitor the Leland, were multi-function pubic buildings, providing
important social meeting space, meals and accommodation, serving a transient migrating
population as well the citizens of the town. The Royal Hotel had sample rooms for
exhibits from commercial travelers where the town’s merchants could select goods that
could be ordered and arrive by rail to stock their stores.
10
Ponoka Herald, Sept 27, 1901.
Ponoka Herald, May 9, 1902. After 1905, the McKelvey and Blain sawmill used the CPR Dam in
junction with a jack ladder to raise the logs into the mill.
11
Ponoka Herald, March 21, 1902.
Ponoka 1904-1954 50th Anniversary . Ponoka: Ponoka Herald 1954, 36.
14
Ponoka Herald, September 23, 1904.
15
Ponoka Herald 1904-1905 passim, Fort Ostell Museum photo collection, 1905, 1909.
12
13
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Source: Fort Ostell Museum. This photograph was actually taken in 1909 according to
the photographer’s signature at the side.
Source: Main Street Program Photo Album, Allan’s hardware and furniture store, railway
Street, pre-1910.
While Ponoka was immediately well served with stores, accommodation, livery stables,
blacksmiths, a restaurant and bakery, a dentist and a doctor, other services were still
needed. As the Ponoka Herald had noted on November 20, 1900, as long as the national
chartered banks refused to open branches along the C & E the citizens were obliged to
keep their accounts in Calgary, with a great deal of inconvenience. As a result smaller
banking outfits appeared on the scene, the first in Ponoka was Armstrong and Co. in
1901, followed by Sellars and McCue, during 1902. 16 Finally, one of Canada’s large
banks, the Bank of Commerce, opened a branch in Ponoka on the corner of Railway
16
Ponoka Herald January, 16, 1903, Nov 23, 1906.
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Street and Chipman Avenue in a small wood frame one-storey gable roofed structure. It
served Ponoka until it was replaced in 1910 by an imposing two-storey brick building,
whose design was mirrored across the Prairies.
Source Main Street Photo album. Ponoka, 1910. View looking south-west along the Battle
River. Note the water tank and windmill above the CPR dam on the river bend at the foot
of Chipman Avenue. The Leland Hotel is also clearly visible behind the Royal Hotel.
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Source: Fort Ostell Museum. Railway Street, pre-1910. The large building with veranda is
the Royal Hotel, the low frame structure to its right is the Bank of Commerce, the two
two-storey buildings side-by-side are Allen’s furniture and Allan’s Hardware Store, next
is Bowker’s livery stable, replaced in 1917 with the Merchant Bank.
The relationship between the town of Ponoka and the surrounding country was a close
one—town business and farming were inextricably linked. The town provided goods and
services and the surrounding farming districts provided customers. Farmers sold their
crops and produce in town and spent in the stores and restaurants. Ponoka was one of
Alberta’s early grain delivery points where farmers hauled their grain to the siding in
wagons or by sleigh in winter. By 1905 two grain elevators, one referred to as the
Lineham elevator, and the other built by Alberta Pacific Grain Co.—a 30,000 bushel
elevator south of the station grounds—were under construction. 17 The townsmen of
Ponoka worked hand in hand with farmers in setting up an Agricultural Society and
holding a fair. Membership tickets cost a dollar, the amount raised was matched by the
government. As the Ponoka Herald pointed out the fair benefited all: “Let everyone,
farmer and businessman see to it that tickets are liberally subscribed for, and thus will be
the Society’s funds be augmented.” 18 It proved a major success and an important annual
event for the town.
Access to town was an important consideration for the town council. Two bridges, one
south of town and another to the east, allowed farmers to cross the river to get to town.
The Battle River frequently ran high in early summer, causing flooding. In June 1908 it
burst its banks, a repeat of severe flooding in 1902. Communication from the east
impossible, and the town flooded making Chipman and Donald Avenues almost
17
18
Ponoka Herald, August 4, 1905.
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impassable, and causing heavy loss to store keepers, some of whom sold off damaged
goods on sale. Throughout the district stock was drowned, bridges and culverts washed
away. 19
Recreational activities were quickly part of life for many residents of Ponoka. In summer
fishing was popular. “The sport is capital,” the Herald exclaimed in July 1908, “huge
hauls caught, and many homes are being run on the cheap thereby. The smell of the
frying pan is much in evidence.” Fishing on the river remained an annual pastime for
decades, as did swimming in the heat of summer. Below the town the river offered an
inviting place to take a cool dip, popular during school holidays. Organized swimming
races were held in the river. Over the years, however, the river took its toll, as drowning
claimed the lives of too many inadequate swimmers.
The river also provided the first winter recreational facilities and a skating rink was
formed on the river near the saw mill in 1902 20 as well on a slough west of town. In 1906
hockey enthusiasts met at the Royal Hotel to discuss entering the central Alberta Hockey
League and the possibility of erecting a covered rink. 21 The fortunes of Ponoka’s baseball
and football teams were followed enthusiastically. The school girls took up basketball
and the Ladies tennis by summer of 1908. Other sports were followed too. The Ponoka
Gun Club was established in 1908 and member Edward Meade was among the best shots
in western Canada in summer 1909. 22
The evolution of the town’s infrastructure was not fast enough for many citizens.
Although there were wooden sidewalks and crossings, the streets became a muddy
quagmire in spring and dusty in summer. The sidewalks were 1 inch planks, too frail
apparently for the weight of cows grazing within the town limits that caused them to give
way, and in summer 1907 the town constable spent a considerable amount of time
repairing them. 23 The provision of water remained primitive, sourced from three town
wells as late as 1906. Telephone service came to Ponoka in 1908, and the exchange was
first located in McKinnell’s Drug Store with 35 numbers and two country lines. 24
A town hall was under construction by July 1907. An imposing structure it was
completed in September 1907 and the town constable and several members of the fire
brigade immediately took up residence. 25 A stage was put in early 1908, and by 1909
was used for theatre, masquerades, and ran films from the Edison Moving Picture Co.
during the winter months. In May 1910, on the death of King Edward VII, a memorial
service was held in the town hall, which was used for whist drives, dances and other
functions, and from 1937 housed the library.
19
Ponoka Herald, June18, 1908.
Ponoka Herald, January 17 1902.
21
Ponoka Herald, November 2, 1906.
22
Fort Ostell, exhibit text, Ponoka Herald, July 22, 1909.
23
24
Fort Ostell, exhibit text.
25
20
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Source: Fort Ostell Museum. The town hall as it appeared in the 1920s.
In 1907, it was decided that Alberta’s Provincial Mental Institute would be located south
of the town of Ponoka on the east side of the Battle River, largely due to the campaign
led by Dr. William Alexander Campbell, Ponoka’s Liberal MLA. 26 The decision boosted
the Town council’s efforts to put Ponoka on the map. As the Herald noted: “With the
establishment of one [of ] the government’s principal institutions in our midst, and the
impetus it will give the place, everything possible must be done to make the town look
its best.” 27 Construction was underway by August 1909 and in 1911 the new hospital its
first patients. Apart from hospital staff bringing business to the town the hospital brought
other benefits such as the possibility electricity could be provided to the town from the
power plant at the asylum. By Jan 1911 the town had electric street lights. 28
Life in Ponoka was chronicled through the columns of its newspaper the Ponoka Herald.
It was taken over in 1906 by George Gordon and located in a boom town front frame
building on Donald Avenue, from where it went to press until 1953. Gordon was the
town’s best promoter; the newspaper’s motto was “Ponoka First, Last, and All the Time.”
Like most small town editors, Gordon knew his readership, and he avoided taking a
partisan stand or supporting a political party. Editorials and articles frequently focused on
agricultural matters as well as larger political and economic issues facing western
Canada. Reader turned to the Herald for local announcements and prices. The
happenings of the town were for many years collected in a column called “Local News.”
The businesses that advertised in its pages are a barometer of economic conditions and
26
Campbell was re-re-elected in 1909 and 1913.
28
Ponoka Herald, 1910, January 1911, passim.
27
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trends and serve to illustrate changing tastes and technology, as well as the availability of
an increasingly wide range of goods.
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. Post 1910. Buildings, Left to right, Thompsons’s Grocery
Store, Royal Hotel, a café, Allan’s Furniture and Hardware.
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Striving for Stability: 1911-1919
This period marked the beginning of a second generation of buildings, while some were
merely larger wood frame structures designed to meet increased business demands, others
marked the adoption of brick as a construction material to decrease the threat from fire. In
March 1905 Ponoka had suffered the same fate as many other Alberta towns – its first
disastrous fire. The alarm was raised at 6:30 am and soon the entire frontage s on
Railway Avenue, south of Chipman Avenue, was ablaze. No lives were lost, although
one child was badly burned, as the whole block was destroyed. The endangered Royal
Hotel was saved when the wind, which was fortuitously only slight averting an even
greater disaster, changed direction. Nevertheless there was considerable damage from
water being poured on the roof. “In a few hours it was all over, and the amount of goods
and chattels bestrewing the railway lands in front bore ample testimony to the havoc
wrought.” 29 The town subsequently set up a fire brigade under a veteran fire fighter,
Chief O’Brien, and purchased fire fighting equipment. 30 When the Bank of Commerce
announced its intent to build a substantial brick building on a sandstone foundation to
replace its current premises, it was clearly a protective measure as well as a measure of
its profit margin. 31
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. The scene at the burned out block south of Chipman
Avenue, 1905. Note the design of the Royal Hotel with its gable roof. By 1909 it was
expanded, a third storey added, the roof line changed to feature a parapet wall, and it
was clad with brick veneer.
Ponoka Herald, April 13, 1906.
31
Ponoka Herald, June 30, 1910.
29
30
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Such considerations ushered in a spate of building new premises in brick even as a world
wide recession and World War I began. The fire menace was brought home again in
1913, when the Algar new wood frame store built in 1902 to replace an earlier log
building that had also burned, together with the post office now run by Charles’ Algar’s
son Frederick, which was located at the rear of the lot, were wiped out, along with
adjacent offices on the block. This was Algar’s second store to be lost to fire, and
although the building had been clad with metal siding as a fire precaution, it had proved
inadequate. This time Frederick Algar was taking no chances and constructed an
impressive brick masonry structure on the same field stone foundation. The lesson was
not lost on other merchants and when Angus Reid wanted to expand his two-storey wood
frame general mercantile store on Donald Avenue in 1915, he constructed a brick
addition on the west side. 32 When another serious fire in July 1915 wiped out the
Alexander & Tugman feed mill, along with a barber shop and laundry, it provided more
impetus for building in brick.
The Merchant Bank of Canada opened a branch in Ponoka in 1915, its premises initially
occupied space in the new addition to Reid’s store in early 1916. 33 By November 1917
the bank’s first brick wall on its new site on Railway Avenue was up, and the bank soon
opened for business. In December 1921 the Merchant Bank of Canada merged with the
Bank of Montreal and continued its operation, as the Bank of Montreal, from its
impressive brick premises in Ponoka.
The two-storey brick Bird Drug Company Store was built in summer 1918 by builder A.
Sayers. Sidney Bird had been a pharmacist and property owner in Ponoka since 1910, and
took over the Campbell Drug Store in 1916. Bird’s construction of a new store in 1918
and subsequent interior renovations and a brick masonry addition on the east side in
1929, marked the expansion of his business and the growing prosperity of the town
through the 1920s. The Ponoka Herald welcomed the addition of this handsome building
which “will add much to the town’s appearance.” 34
Bricks were readily available from the Red Deer brick yards, and the use of brick as a
building material brought a new group of skilled tradesmen to Ponoka. Builders and
contractors Amudson and Morrison opened for business in early 1919, 35 and among the
first jobs they undertook was the drawing up of plans and specifications for T. J. Durkin’s
new brick store to replace his earlier wood frame premises on Chipman Avenue. T. J.
Durkin, pioneer settler Durkin, a clothier in Ponoka since 1903, used the construction of
new brick premises in 1919, to convey the permanence of his business.
32
Ponoka Herald, January 27, 1916.
34
35
33
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Source: Fort Ostell Museum. Elevator row was the back drop to farewell scenes at
Ponoka.
Other however, continued to build with wood. Headley and Few erected a large wood
frame hall, measuring 36 x 80 feet, on Railway Street to accommodate their “picture
show” business in late 1913, and it opened in January 1914 to great excitement. Inside, it
had a 16 foot ceiling and stage measuring 18 x 36 feet. The Herald noted the building had
four exits, two in front and two on the side. Well-finished with a lighting system that was
a feature, the hall had a gallery running across the east end, and a front ticket office and
commodious cloak rooms. 36 The Empress, as it became known, was also used for many
community social events, dances, and speakers, who included prohibitionist activist
Nellie McClung in February 1915. 37
Ponoka was typical of small towns in Alberta during World War I. Young men,
especially those with ties to Great Britain, left to serve in the battlefield. The Ponoka
Herald received tri-daily bulletins and people could telephone the Herald office phone for
news. Businesses and individuals contributed to the Patriotic Fund. Headley & Few were
showing the latest war pictures by February 1915. 38 The torpedo sinking of the Lusitania
off the coast of Ireland made front page news in the Herald in May 1915. On the home
front, local women knitted and sewed for the Canadian Red Cross, sending off a shipment
to Calgary in late March1915 to be sent to troops overseas. 39 Other ways of supporting
the Red Cross included holding ten cent lawn teas with ice cream and a programme, such
as that held on a pleasant September evening in 1915. 40 Twenty eight young boys had
signed up for cadets in early summer. 41 As Ponoka names appeared on the lists of
36
38
39
40
41
Ponoka Herald, May 13, 1915.
37
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causalities and the dead, the war in Europe was never far from the minds of those who
had family and friends serving on the front. The Empress Theatre hosted a lantern slide
talk on the battle fields of Flanders given by wounded returned soldiers in aid of the Red
Cross that included a musical entertainment from the Ponoka orchestra.42
Source: Fort Ostell Museum, The empress theatre and one of the town’s new garages.
While the debate on the need for Prohibition legislation dominated the pages of many
Alberta Newspapers, the Ponoka Herald was relatively mute on the subject. In July 1915
George Gordon noted that Mrs. Dick and several others led a parade of children around
town carrying flags and banners, but that otherwise things were business as usual—other
than a larger number than usual of the town’s citizens “rested their posteriors on the
sidewalks, no doubt discussing the pros and cons.” 43 A month later the Leland Hotel
closed its doors in anticipation of the outcome of the Prohibition plebiscite that was held
in July 1916 and the expected downturn in the hotel industry. It became home to a pool
hall and a barber shop, before reopening in 1918 without a bar and under new
management. In 1919 a new Café opened in the hotel offering “meals at all hours.”
While Armistice Day brought peace, the world pandemic Spanish Influenza soon
followed. Ponoka, under the direction of Dr. Campbell, ordered the closure of the school,
churches, picture house, lodges, pool rooms, and cancellation of all public meetings. By
November a number of patients and staff at the Provincial Mental Hospital had died, but
others taken ill in the town, unlike in so many other communities and in the rural districts
surrounding Ponoka, had still been spared. 44 As soldiers began to return home in
December there could be little public fanfare due to the influenza. The following
summer the town’s band, wearing its new uniforms, was finally able to stage a parade as
returned soldiers got off the train.
42
44
Ponoka Herald, Nov 7, 1918.
43
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Automobiles became part of the Ponoka landscape by the end of the war. The first one
was appeared on the streets of Ponoka, with one F. M. Lee at the wheel in April 1910. 45
The automobile trade became more active by early 1915 as farmers began to purchase
them. 46 Local hardware merchants installed gasoline tanks in front of their premises on
Railway Street in 1916, 47 signifying a first step towards the full service garages and
dealerships that would appear in the 1920s.
A mood of post-war enthusiasm marked events in Ponoka during summer 1919. “Let us
see; there has been something doing the past week,” mused the Ponoka Herald on July
17:
The Rimbey-Ponoka ball game drew a large crowd of sober ( and otherwise)
citizens from the neighbouring towns. Then we had the Chautuaqua, which
brought crowds to town; The free Methodist camp meeting, with close on 100
tents on the grounds; an Indian Pow Wow –about 700 Red Men encamped within
the town limits; the Salvation Army holding meetings on the streets, special show
in empress theatre, the orange fife and drum calling the faithful, and last but not
least a community service in the large Chautuaqua, tent last Sunday with five
different denominations represented on the platform and a congregation of about
500 people. All this within a week in the town of Ponoka. But then it’s the garden
of Alberta.
The war was over, the influenza epidemic was past and Ponoka residents were ready to
re-embark on a bright future.
47
45
46
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Ponoka’s Golden Years: 1920-1929
Ponoka was on a roll and thrived under the United Farmers of Alberta Government
elected in 1921. Premier Brownlee represented the constituency in which Ponoka was
located. In June 1926 he spoke to a packed town hall audience in Ponoka prior to his reelection. 48 Many communities suffered economic downtown in the early 1920s, but
Ponoka, if the Ponoka Herald can be believed, fared better. The First Nations from the
surrounding reserves spent their land money in Ponoka, leaving thousands of dollars with
the business owner according to the Ponoka Herald on May 3 1923. The Herald
encouraged its readers to attend the sports day held on the reserve south of Hobbema in
May 1923. 49 During the 1920s the Provincial Mental hospital expanded, with a laundry,
two male wards and a male dining room. By 1927 six staff residences and a staff garage
had been constructed. The hospital, albeit outside the town’s boundaries, created a
distinct society, but one that none the less contributed to the town’s economic, social and
cultural life, warranting its own column in the newspaper.
Certainly, new businesses and buildings were the order of the day bringing work for
those in the building trade, and businesses advertised their goods confidently with big
splashy advertisements. Three dray loads of Eaton’s catalogues were delivered to the
town in August 1920, emphasizing the availability of new consumer goods. Even the
UFA cooperative general store offered dining room suites in American walnut and new
shoes in Parisian styles.
The demand for housing either to rent or to purchase was high as was the cost of building
materials. In 1920 Joeseph Ardell of Ponoka bought a half interest in Fran Piper’s Brick
Yard in Red Deer. As the Ponoka Herald noted, “Owing to the high price of lumber, the
demand for brick is increasing, and the company expects to do a good business.” 50 By
1920 properties were changing hands at twice, or even three times, the price of several
years previously. “An additional 75 to 100 hundred residences,” the Ponoka Herald
noted, “would be none to many.” 51
As Ponoka’s population expanded, the problem of inadequate classroom space in
Ponoka’s four-roomed school constructed in 1901 and at additional locations in the town,
became acute. In April 1928 school trustees purchased a 10-acre site at the west edge of
town and soon an imposing large brick school, which introduced aspects of modern
architectural thinking in Collegiate Gothic style architecture displaying contemporary Art
Deco influences to Ponoka, was under construction. The school could be seen from
Railway Avenue looking west on Chipman Avenue, and by 1930 it had been landscaped
with trees and shrubs and a concrete path was laid to the door.
48
49
50
51
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Source: Glenbow Archives. The Ponoka Brick School. circa 1930.
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. The school is visible in the far background. The 1910 Bank
of Commerce is on the right, near foreground, the Royal Hotel on the left near
foreground. Behind the Royal Hotel is the Leyland Hotel, and the Bird Drug Store is
across the street behind the bank.
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Ponoka’s expanding businesses served a large number of districts in all directions around
the town, including Asker, Fertile Valley, Ferry Bank, Dakota, Meniak, Waterglen, and
Homeglen. All these districts regarded Ponoka as it their nearest town and shopping
point. As the automobile became more widely used, more and more women began
coming to town on Saturdays from the country. The Ponoka Rest Room Association was
formed with the idea of providing a venue for farm women travelling in from country
districts with small children who needed washroom facilities and somewhere warm to
rest, feed babies, use the telephone, and wait while their husbands conducted farm
business, or to use as a base from which to shop. Town and country interests came
together in the aim of the rest room. Among the fund raising activities was the holding of
the very first stampede in Ponoka at the fair grounds on August 28, 1920. It was highly
successful reportedly drawing a crowd of 2,000. It netted $1,100, the proceeds going to
the Ladies Rest Room fund. 52 The first rest room opened in 1920, but soon provide
inadequate to the demand and in the level of comfort it provided, and in 1929 the
building of a two-storey cast stone structure on Donald Avenue was testament to the
importance of its function, A number of local women’s organizations including the
Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE) established in 1929, used the
premises for their meetings for a period of time.
The adoption of the automobile brought a new building: the full service garage. A.B.
Wiancko erected a garage on Donald Street in 1922 and together with other dealers and
garage men in town provided service to the ever increasing number of automobile
owners. The year 1925 saw the construction of the Maple Leaf Garage on the east side of
Railway Street at 53 Avenue that incorporated elements of Spanish Revival style, such
as the projecting gable roofed canopy, that spread north from California in the 1920s.
52
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Source: Ponoka Main Street Photo Album. Maple Leaf Garage, circa 1925.
Communications also improved during the 1920s. Not only could people travel more
easily, but the telephone service improved. In 1922 Alberta Government Telephones
moved its exchange into one of its small custom-designed red brick AGT buildings that
dotted the province. 53 Ponoka adopted the modern technology of radio in the 1920s. “The
radio craze has certainly taken hold of our citizens,” noted the Ponoka Herald, on
November 6, 1924. In advertising fall necessities such as weather strip, storm sash
hangers and lantern and lamp globes, Allan’s furniture store declared, “and then when
you get your house comfortable see us about a radio!.”54
The appearance of the town and ongoing infrastructure problems were constant themes in
the columns of the Ponoka Herald. Spring flooding continued to plague the town; the
problem compounded by an ineffective drain in the vicinity of the Town Hall. In 1925 the
Ponoka Herald suggested that the plans and blue prints for a new drain drawn up by
engineering company Gault & Co. be finally implemented. The town council, however,
in 1925 focused on repair of the old drain with new timbers. When the river rose high
enough there was little to be done. In 1927 the Battle River rose 16 inches during a single
day breaking records and the town was practically cut off, even as dynamite was used on
the ice floes to prevent the bridges from being damaged. Problems with drainage
persisted, and in March 1930 another trench had to be cut across Donald Avenue to carry
off the water from melting snow. 55 Finally in May 1931, town council decided to put in a
catch basin on the south side of Donald Avenue, which was completed two weeks later. 56
In 1926 the question of the beautification of the town was taken up by the Ponoka
Herald, which declared the impression gleaned from the railway was most unfavourable,
urging more painting of the business section and the planting of trees on the town’s
streets. 57 In May 1929, 200 trees were set out along Donald Avenue under the
supervision of the Ponoka Horticultural Society, while some succumbed to hot weather
that followed a reasonable percentage survived. 58
The 1920s brought changes in ownership as original business owners aged and took the
opportunity of good economic conditions to sell out Land Headley sold his pool hall in a
1918 brick building on Chipman Avenue to Bill de Wilde in 1924. 59 In 1925 A. Reid
sold his general mercantile business on Donald Avenue to the UFA Co-operative
Association which moved into the building from its earlier Railway Street premises.
Reid, who had been in business for 22 years, went into semi-retirement and carried on his
53
54
55
Fort Ostell Museum, exhibit text.
Ponoka Herald, Nov 6, 1924.
Ponoka Herald, May 21, June 4, 1931.
58
59
56
57
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________________________________________________________________
insurance business, which he had established in 1899. 60 T. J. Durkin, too, sold his
thriving clothing business, to Mike Green at the height of the economic boom in 1928.
Source: Glenbow Archives. The Bird Drug Store circa 1930. The addition on the east side
is clearly visible in the shading of the brick. Next west on Chipman Avenue is the Pioneer
Meat Market, and the second next building with the brick parapet is the T. J.
Durkin/Green’s Ltd. Building.
Spiritual and social affairs were also marked by new developments. Methodists and
Presbyterians who had united in Ponoka in 1916, prior to the formal union of 1925,
dedicated the new United Church in 1927, which resulted from an addition to the
Presbyterian Church constructed in 1903. 61 The number of benevolent organizations
grew; among them was the Elks Lodge established in 1925 and soon hard at work
furthering the town’s interests. A first tourism endeavour in the town was instigated in
August 1925 when the Elks opened a tourist camp located at north end of Railway Street
with a carnival that included a parade, midway and a dance. 62 In 1929 the new Elks’
Memorial Hall and Plaque on Chipman Avenue was unveiled by the Governor-General
Dr. W. G. Egbert at a dedication ceremony that marked the sacrifices made by Ponoka’s
young men 1914-1918.
The 1920s were indeed Ponoka’s golden years. In 1929 grain prices were at an all time
high, Ponoka had a row of five grain elevators. But when the stock market crash came
60
Ponoka Herald, April 30 1925.
62
Ponoka Herald, August 20, 1925.
61
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late that year, Alberta catapulted into economic downturn; Ponoka was not immune to its
effects.
Challenging Years of Financial Difficulty and War: 1930-1945
Ponoka, along with many other thriving Alberta towns, was forced to cool the pace of
development and optimism that had fuelled its progress through the 1920s. Business fell
off, and people found it a struggle to pay their taxes. By January 1930 Ponoka had its
share of unemployed men, war veterans among them looking for work. 63 In 1931 the
number of transient tradesmen looking for work in the town, prompted the council to
require a work license to protect the local tradesmen. Nevertheless, Town improvements
temporarily continued. The brightening of the garden plot at the CPR station with
blooming plants was welcomed by the town in June 1931. The town hired the Fort
McMurray Asphaltum and Oil Company to lay new asphalt sidewalks on Donald Avenue
in fall 1931, prompting the Herald to remark “it looks as though there will be no more
wooden sidewalks laid in Ponoka.” 64
At Christmas 1931 Ponokaites were reminded that the stores would have ample goods on
hand to suit all demands and to buy local: “Why send away for gifts when out stores are
cram full.” 65 The UFA store reminded its patrons that it was not there to make a profit
but to serve the public and, from March 1, 1932, with every cash purchase, issued cash
tickets redeemable for patronage dividend. 66 The same week the Club Café announced a
reduction in its prices; a full course meal could be had for 25cents. By April it was clear
that the economic situation was not hopeful as the Ponoka Agricultural Society, unable to
obtain grants from the province, municipal District or the town, had to postpone the
annual Fair indefinitely. 67
The arrival of a Safeway store in 1929 signified that Ponoka, like a number of other
towns in Central Alberta, posed an opportunity with townsfolk who would accept the
cutting edge of new retail ideas. Built on the company’s standard design, the Safeway
building featured sheet metal pan tiles on its roof—a sensible adaptation to the rigours of
an Alberta winter. Weekend specials were the order of the day for Safeway whose slogan
was “distribution without waste.” By 1940 Safeway, which insisted on cash payment
rather than credit as was common many of Ponoka’s grocery stores, had closed. The
building was bought by James Hamilton who operated Cash Foods, and then IGA from
the premises until1 1960. 68
Local merchants were determined to keep their customers loyal. A campaign was
mounted in tandem with the Empress Theatre which offered a 10 cent ticket with one
regular ticket along with purchases at participating merchants—F.E. Algar Limited,
Allan’s hardware, Masson’s Garage, Pioneer Meat Market, Bitterner’s Grocteria, Ponoka
63
64
Ponoka Herald, October 1, 1931.
Ponoka Herald, December 3, 1931.
66
67
68
Interview with Jim Hamilton (Jr,) Ponoka, March, 2010.
65
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________________________________________________________________
Cleaning and Dye Works, the Coffee Shop, and the Fashion Shoppe. “Be loyal to your
own Community, patronize home owned stores. Do your part towards restoring
prosperity.” 69
The greatest retail competition in the 1930s rested in the grocery trade, even if people had
little money for consumer goods, they ate as well as they could, looking for low prices
and bargains. The bid for a tight profit margin was accentuated by the arrival of a
Safeway Store in Ponoka in 1929. Ponoka had numerous grocery stores through the
1930s including long term businesses such as F. E. Algar’s general store, Thompson’s,
and Brody’s, the UFA Co-operative Store, and Jenkins Groceteria, a Calgary-based
company that had grown out of the first cash and carry business established in Alberta
during World War I. Scott’s Groceteria opened in August 1933 on Chipman Avenue.
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. Chipman Avenue, 1930s. Jenkin’s Groceteria and Bill’s Billiard
Hall.
At the annual town meeting in February 1933 the town’s financial position was laid bare
for its citizens. Despite the discount on timely payment the uncollected taxes at the end of
1932 were $18, 218.78, over 700 dollars more than the amount owing at the same time
the previous year, “showing that this depression is beginning to show its force in this
locality, and from indications,” the Finance and By law Committee noted, “the next year
will see us in a tighter financial condition than at the present time.” 70 The seriousness of
the tax situation was made clear by the unwillingness of citizens to serve as town
councillors in 1932, when two members were appointed by the Minister of Municipal
Affairs. In the meantime a taxpayers Association was formed. 71 The Ponoka Mercantile
69
Ponoka Herald, August 1932.
71
70
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store operated by J. Hornstein burned to the ground in January 1933. 72 Not only did it
incur a huge loss for Hornstein, but also for the town from the costs incurred in fighting
the fire for five hours. In February 1933 the whole council resigned giving the
opportunity for the election of an entirely new council. The new council had very serious
problems to deal with. The town had borrowed money on demand from the bank for
operating the expenses paying the amount back as feasible to keep interest down as far as
possible, but in view of tax arrears repayment was impossible.
Ponoka and district, despite financial problems during the 1930s was not as hard hit as
many Alberta communities. In the east and southeast parts of Alberta dry climatic
conditions and poor crops also caused disaster for many farm families. Ponoka was not
affected by the drought, and along with other communities, the citizens of Ponoka and
outlying districts, were ready to help those less fortunate. The Ponoka Relief Committee
with representatives from various organizations was formed at the Community Rest
Room in June 1932 73 to a help local families collect clothing, food and medicine.
By February 1934 the effects of the economic slow down and decreasing town revenues
were escalating. Town employees had their salaries during 1933 cut by 20%, and while
this allowed for a further reduction in the mill rate as it was clear that the ability of the
tax payers to pay had been reached. Public works were carried out under relief measures
as far as possible. The uncollected taxes rose to $21, 406.13. Ponoka was in a deficit, as
the total revenue for 1933 was $28, 885.65 while the expenditure was $32, 348.74. 74 At
the end of December the Bank of Montreal announced it was closing its branch in
Ponoka, and the town according to the Herald, lost a fine institution along with valuable
citizens on its staff. “It was known that branches of the banks were being closed
throughout the west, but Ponoka, being such a thriving community, coupled with
Provincial Mental Hospital, it was not expected that a reduction would take place here.” 75
The year 1935, however, marked an improvement in the town’s fortunes.
One sign was the remodelling of older buildings, which often involved the use of stucco
cladding becoming a fashionable building material used on the new stream lines of
emerging Moderne architecture in larger centres. The Empress Theatre was clad with
stucco in 1935 and the Leland Hotel in 1938. At the same time two new grocery stores
opened, and the Nu-spot café was under construction on Chipman Avenue. As the Herald
duly noted, “Many new buildings are being erected in town and trade is extremely brisk
in the building line. This should ease the situation of scarcity of houses to a degree.” 76
The town, too, began to spend more money. Following the re-grading of the streets in
1935, an effort was made the following year to deal with the dust situation on when the
town purchased a second hand water sprinkler from Red Deer. Trees from the
72
73
76
74
75
Page 235
________________________________________________________________
MacDonald Nurseries of Lacombe were planted in 1936 on Donald Avenue. 77 In 1936,
town and country came together as a stampede was again held in Ponoka; its success
ensured it became an annual event that has continued to the present. The purchase of cars
continued and in 1937 the town had to install Stop signs and impose traffic regulations in
view of the growing problem of traffic on the streets, more especially in light of the
Alberta Government’s proposal to run an improved Hwy 2 between Calgary and
Edmonton down Railway Street. 78
Plans for forming a chamber of commerce were underway by July 1935. “There is every
indication, the Herald enthused, “of a return to a more prosperous period, and by a united
effort, through such an organization Ponoka and District will be in a better position to
share the prosperity now in sight.” The new Chamber of commerce announced a monster
trade carnival in fall when every business would offer sensational bargains, as well as a
week of free instructional activities and amusements. At Christmas 1935 the mood was
jubilant. “Never have our store keepers gone to so much trouble to attract attention for the
festive season. The windows display gifts for old and young, while inside everything is so
temptingly set out that the most fastidious should be satisfied. Bring the children to see
Santa, and get the Christmas supplies locally.” 79 One place where thrift was possible was
Thirsk’s 5c to $1 that opened in the Kennedy and Russell building next to the Leland
Hotel on Chipman Avenue in 1937.
The construction of the Sweet Block on Chipman Avenue in 1937 illustrated a recovery
from the depression. Don Sweet and his wife Ella, who ran a beauty parlour, made the
move to invest in the construction of a new building—next door to their existing block—
for a mixed-use function. It provided rentable business and office space, a new premise
for the beauty parlour, and their living quarters. They employed an Edmonton architect,
J.A. Buchanan, to design an up-to-date building and the result was an imposing solid
two-storey brick masonry structure with elements of early Moderne architecture,
including a stucco finish featuring horizontal stream lines, distinctive curved recessed
entryways and large commercial store front display windows. The use of stucco as a
design element, rather than as just a cladding, signified a modernity that was to
characterize the next building wave in Ponoka. In 1939 the Sweet Block became home to
the Greyhound Bus terminal and the up-to date Terminal Café that featured a soda
fountain and could accommodate forty people.
77
Ponoka Herald, August 5, November 11, 1937.
79
78
Page 236
________________________________________________________________
Source: Ponoka Main Street Photo Album. This photograph taken circa 1964 shows the
1937 two-storey Sweet Block, (constructed on the burnt-out site of Hornstein’s store)
with its early Moderne lines evident in the curved recessed doorways. In the near
foreground is the Thirsk’s 5c to $1 Building, also constructed on Moderne lines in 1949,
and sold to Stedman’s in 1963. The photo suggests that perhaps someone lost control at
the wheel!
Moderne lines were also evident in the The Ponoka Cold Storage Service building
constructed in 1941 by Angus McLeod. He was following in the footsteps of early
butchers in Ponoka and its succession of traditional meat markets. In conjunction with his
cattle business in Riverside on the east side of the Battle River, McLeod operated a retail
butcher shop in the building which also housed freezer lockers. These could be rented by
Ponoka residents to store frozen food, custom cut meats, fish purchased at the store or
ducks snagged during the fall hunt, at a time when few people had fridges. The 200
lockers were accessible during business hours by customers who had their own keys. 80 In
1948 a complimentary addition was constructed on the west side of the building. A
similar architectural aesthetic was found in the lines of Lloyd Thirsk’s the new 5c to $1
store constructed in 1949.
A building boom was evident in Ponoka from 1938, with 32 building permits issued for
new buildings and alterations and additions by September 8 that year. A new section was
added to the grocery and hardware departments of the Co-op store.81 The late summer
80
See Fort Ostell, MHPP research file, Ponoka Cold Storage Service Building, for plans and more
information.
81
Ponoka Herald, November 24,1938.
Page 237
________________________________________________________________
days of 1939 were warm and while some Ponokaites were busy picking blueberries
others went to the west coast or to nearby lakes.
From September 1939, however, the outbreak of war in 1939 had people in Ponoka
listening to their radios for the latest news from Europe. Historey seemed to repeat itself
as many young men and women, barely out of school, signed up for wartime service at
the Community Rest Room. 82 War news once gain hit the front pages of the Ponoka
Herald. Women once again went knitting for the Canadian Red Cross. By 1941 the
town’s merchants used their advertisements to encourage their patrons to “Help finish the
Job” and Buy Victory Bonds.” Whatever personal worries and grief the war brought to
Ponoka, the town, however, continued to thrive and people focused on keeping the town
well maintained. According to the Ponoka Herald, houses were being painted and
stuccoed and sidewalks were being laid by home owners in May 1941.
Grain and produce prices kept pace with wartime demand. The country districts around
the town prospered as farmers attempted to fill the demand for their produce even as their
labour force depleted. There was a run on whatever new farm machinery was available
and the shops and garages were busy as they tried to repair old machinery to get the work
done. Ponoka’s grain elevators were filled to capacity in 1942-43, but soon emptied as
farmers scrambled to supply grain to war ravaged Europe as the war ended.
82
Page 238
________________________________________________________________
Modern Ponoka: 1945 to 1960
By 1945 the war and war time austerity measures were over and Ponoka took steps to
install utilities as the first step to real modernization. During World war II Ponoka’s
homes still did not have running water, and while some people had chemical toilets,
others had an outhouse in the yard, and business premises used biffies in the alleys. In
1946 Ponoka’s streets were disarray as natural gas lines were installed, then the town laid
water and sewer lines in 1948. By 1950 most of the town’s buildings were serviced and
the outhouses in the alleys were gone forever. The introduction of full utilities had a
profound effect on buildings in the town as bathrooms were put in everywhere.
Apartments and rooming houses were all gradually renovated through the 1950s as
owners installed to modern utilities; remodelled suites on the upper floor of the Sweet
Block that featured enamel sinks and wash basins with taps, were representative of others
in the town.
The end of the war brought a changed attitude towards alcohol and Alberta’s liquor laws
were modernized in 1950, resulting in 409 beer licenses being granted to Alberta hotels
in 1951, 83 including the Royal Hotel and the Leland Hotel. The Leland Hotel undertook
renovations to provide additional space at the rear of hotel for a tavern to meet the
expanding thirst for beer produced by Alberta’s breweries.
In 1947 oil was discovered at Leduc and Alberta’s oil and gas industry took off bringing
unprecedented revenues to the provincial coffers that percolated down to municipalities
bringing money for roads, bridges, hospitals, recreational facilities. A new emphasis on
public buildings was evident at both the provincial and municipal level. Ponoka had
acquired a hospital in 1946, a medical clinic in 1955, a new school in 1956, and a
municipal curling rink in 1956. These new public service buildings brought a new postwar architectural idiom to Ponoka—International Style Modernism. This style was
adopted by the Government of Alberta on all its new provincial buildings, and throughout
Alberta, including buildings in Ponoka on a medium or small scale.
83
Http://www.aglc.gov.ab.ca/liquor/liquorhistoryandfacts.asp.
Page 239
________________________________________________________________
Source: Glenbow Archives. The Royal and the Leland Hotels as they looked in 1956.
One of the new public buildings was a much needed town library that had been long
campaigned for as the library space in the town hall was becoming cramped. In 1955
Alberta celebrated her Gold Jubilee. The Alberta Government funded 50th Anniversary
Page 240
________________________________________________________________
cultural projects and approved increased spending backed by provincial legislation to
improve the province’s libraries. The town of Ponoka assumed municipal responsibility
for the Ponoka Jubilee Library (1956) and excavation began in October 1955 with funds
raised by the people of Ponoka with help from a provincial grant.
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. The Ponoka Jubilee (1956) Library with a civil defence
vehicle in front.
As men returned after the war the dream of a suburban family life complete with schools
hospitals and parks became a reality. The town of Ponoka expanded in step with this
vision. In 1949 a new subdivision named Lucas Heights after an early settler, was
subdivided for homes for veterans.
Other municipal concerns were also evident. The Cold War caused a pall of uncertainty
to hang over Ponoka where the Alberta Civil Defence League had a particularly active
group. In tandem with the personnel of the town’s fire department they staged a major
civil defence exercise in 1954, undertaking mock triage scenes and “rescuing” people
from the top of a grain elevator. The library basement served as Civil Defence
headquarters for a number of years into 1960s.
Page 241
________________________________________________________________
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. This aerial photograph shows the early postwar expansion
of Ponoka and the new rerouted Hwy 2 that ran along its western edge.
In the late 1940s Albertans’ love affair with cars blossomed. After the war time gasoline
restrictions, the pent up desire to drive swept though Ponoka’s citizens as it did
everywhere in Alberta. Cars were on order and everyone waited. Advertisements for
Ford, Oldsmobile, and Chevrolet ran through the summer of 1947, but cars remained in
short supply for years. A modern Esso station came to Ponoka in 1957, and was run by
Jimmy Mark in conjunction with a modern bungalow type motel called The Oasis. It was
conveniently located on Hwy 2 (now Hwy 2a) for travelers.
Page 242
________________________________________________________________
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. Parking became an issue on the streets of the town that
were still filled with pre-war models in 1948.
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. Modernization was everywhere, and in 1950 Ponoka
became home to a new cutting edge movie theatre named the Capitol, seen her eon the
right. It was located right beside its predecessor the Empress.
Page 243
________________________________________________________________
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. Parade on Donald Avenue 1950s. Centre foreground is the
Community Rest Room, and on the right the Ponoka Herald Building.
Source: Fort Ostell Museum. Modern Chipman Avenue, Ponoka, early 1960s. Some early
buildings have been re-clad and have new signage. The biggest changes, however, would
come in the 1970s and 1980s.
Page 244
________________________________________________________________
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Fort Ostell Museum
Photo collection
Main Street Project Collection – Individual Building Restoration Files and Photo Album.
Glenbow Archives
Photo collection
Fire Insurance Map 1906 and 1951.
Provincial Archives
79.334,/1124, 1144, Department of Education, correspondence, 1919-59.
82.147/152, Alberta Insurance Company, Ponoka.
Photo collection.
67.4/353 a&b, 354a&b, Safety and Inspection Red cords from the o
office of the Provincial Fire Commissioner, Ponoka.
PR1966.0192/120.Fire Insurance map, 1928,
Wrigley’s Alberta Directory, 1920
Henderson’s Alberta Gazetteer and Directory, 1924.
Henderson’s Directory of the Province of Alberta, 1928-29.
Government Publications
Alberta .Department of Education, Annual Report, 1925-1930.
Ponoka Main Street Project. Final report and recommendations. A partnership of the
Town of Ponoka, Alberta Main Street Program, and the Alberta Historical Resources
Foundation.
Newspapers
Ponoka Herald, 1900-42, 1949, 1954-57.
Ponoka News and Advertiser, 1957.
Page 245
________________________________________________________________
Secondary Sources
Ponoka Panorama. Ponoka: Ponoka and District Historical Society, 1973.
Ponoka 1904-1954 50th Anniversary . Ponoka: Ponoka Herald 1954.
Ponoka Tewntieth Century Landmarks. Second edition. March 2000.Ponoka Man Street
Project, Town of Ponoka, and the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation.
Oral History Interview
Yvette Stack, February, 2010.
Unrecorded interviews
Elsa and Chris Pedersen
Page 246
________________________________________________________________
Ƈ Appendix
Articles in the Ponoka News and Advertiser, 2010.
Page 247

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