THE KÜTNE READER

A terrific postcard popped up on eBay recently, showing the A. MacDonald & Co. warehouse at 623-25 Front Street in Nelson, ca. 1910 — better known in recent years as the Corner Brick building, and home to many different businesses. Here is the building as seen from approximately the same location today: Here is a closer look at the unidentified gentlemen in the first image: BC Assessment puts the building’s construction at 1903, but Nelson: A Proposal for Urban Heritage Conse

While quite a few postcards show First Nations scenes in East Kootenay, not many exist from West Kootenay. At least, there are only a few we can comfortably say were taken on this side of the Purcell mountains, since the location was not always listed. Although the captions always said “Kootenay Indians,” I don’t know whether these people are Ktunaxa or Sinixt; the photographer probably wasn’t aware of the distinction. We know who he was, though: Allan Lean of Queen Studio in

I picked up a couple of interesting postcards by Hughes Studio recently, showing the mess on Rossland Avenue in Trail following a huge rain storm. A note on the first one indicates they were taken in 1932. In this photo we are looking southeast. The still-standing Colombo Lodge is third from the right and Kootenay Breweries is at far right. The building second from the right still stands; I presume it was also part of the brewery. Below is roughly the same view today, from Go

The postcard below of an old bridge across the Cascade canyon at Christina Lake sold online today. It’s a nice enough image, but it’s the message on the back that’s jaw dropping. It’s the first postcard I’ve seen used to deny involvement in a crime. The card was mailed on June 29, 1929 from Greenwood to Mr. W. Best, secretary of the Elks Club in Victoria. Here is the message flipped on its side: Earlier that month, Arthur Thomas, 19, held up the Grandview branch of the Royal

The postcard below is part of a sequence showing Lieut. George Knopp Trim’s flight around Nelson during the fall fair of 1919 — and crash landing in Kootenay Lake. (Greg Nesteroff collection) Originally the Nelson Agricultural and Industrial Association asked Capt. Fred McCall of Calgary to perform acrobatic flying at the fair but he was forced to cancel due to engine trouble and suggested they approach the Vancouver Aerial League to send someone in his place. Trim (often mis

The remarkable postcard seen below shows two friends, Anna Norris of Boundary, Wash., and Velma Shields, of Waneta, who didn’t let a little thing like an international border come between them. The photo was taken by Frank Palmer of Spokane in 1908, who also published a postcard of the Waneta bridge. He had the girls dress in nearly identical clothing and pose at the boundary marker. The photo appeared in many US newspapers between May 19 and July 20 of that year, including t

Some of the most amazing West Kootenay postcards ever produced show the Rossland mines underground in the 1900s. I don’t know how the photographer managed to get such excellent images in extremely difficult light conditions. There are at least 13 cards in the series, taken in the LeRoi and Centre Star mines. While the photographer is unknown, it was probably someone from out of town given that some of them are labelled “Rosland, BC.” I have a couple, including the one seen be

Many pioneer photographers signed their work — a smart marketing move. Many others did not, leaving us guessing who might have been behind the lens. One such anonymous shutterbug worked throughout southern BC, northern Washington, and a few places in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Idaho, and Montana, primarily from 1908-13, producing amazing images of small towns, including some that were rarely depicted otherwise. The postcards he or she created are among my favourites, but it only