THE KÜTNE READER

In 1962, plans were unveiled to build a three-storey addition to Nelson’s Hume Hotel.

The Nelson Daily News of Nov. 2, 1912 announced a new brewery would be built in Nelson’s Fairview neighbourhood between Nelson Avenue and 2nd Street, north of Kokanee Avenue (then called Kootenay Avenue) and reproduced the concept drawing seen below. The plant was to be built by the Fritz-Steiner Brewing & Malting Co. at an estimated cost of $40,000 to $50,000 ($891,000 to $1.1 million today). Local merchant A.S. Horswill was president of the company, which was capitalized

Nelson historian/author Peter Bartl shared this amazing rendering with me, showing a planned new library for the Notre Dame University campus in Nelson that was never built. Notre Dame University/DTUC fonds (Courtesy Nelson Museum) Ron Welwood, head librarian at Notre Dame and its successor, David Thompson University Centre from 1969 to 1984, says the image “brings back distant memories because it hung in my office for many years until the old dilapidated facility was abandon

The following concept sketch of an aquatic centre for Nelson’s Lakeside Park appeared in the Daily News of Oct. 25, 1949, signed by local architect Bill Williams. It was proposed by the local Kinsmen Club. According to the caption: The completed building will include, on the ground floor, a bathhouse of four sections, men, boys, women, girls; a checkroom, a first aid room, a large concession booth, a furnace room and the Rowing Club. The top floor will include a large ballro

Nelson has had three Kootenay Lake Hospitals. The first, built in 1893 near 40 High Street, had a dozen beds. According to Dr. Lorris E. Borden, it was really primitive … On the ground floor was the admitting room and the kitchen; the second floor had a medical ward and the operating room which was very small and narrow; the bird floor was for surgical patients which was considered a poor arrangement [because] there was no elevator and all surgical patients had to be carried

In 1940, Nelson city council was planning to build a new city hall next door to its existing one at the foot of Ward Street. Local architect Bill Williams drew up a modernist design that looked a bit like the current Vancouver city hall on a smaller scale. I don’t know why the proposal failed, but as a result, the city spent another 20 years in its existing building before deciding, amid much controversy, to move to the former post office at the corner of Ward and Vernon. Th

These Art Deco masterpieces, held by the City of Vancouver Archives , were drawn by the firm of Townley and Matheson , who designed Vancouver city hall, among many other buildings in that city. The first set is of a four-storey hotel intended for Trail, dated Dec. 30, 1927, followed by a three-storey version apparently intended for the same place. City of Vancouver Archives AM1399-S3---: CVA 1399-573 City of Vancouver Archives AM1399-S3---: CVA 1399-575 City of Vancouver Arch

There is a space between Vernon and Lake streets in Nelson that, near as I can tell, has always been vacant. Several buildings have been proposed, but none ever built. The area is seen below in a ca. 1899-1900 photo that belongs to Doug Jones, and extends between the Lakeview Hotel seen at left and the Kootenay Supply Co. at right. By 1945, the City of Nelson owned the property. Nelson Auto Wrecking had previously expressed interest in the seven lots (Block 67, Lots 18-24). N