THE KÜTNE READER

Here’s something that’s not confusing at all: the area across the Columbia River from Trail used to be split into East Trail and Trail East.

A walk down some Trail and Nelson alleys reveals surprises in brick.

Three spectacular slides give us a glimpse of downtown Trail buildings and businesses more than 60 years ago.

Homes at 801 Victoria St., 1498 Cedar Ave., and 1560 Bay Ave. were covered up by commercial storefronts, but continue to peek out overtop.

Folk singer Pete Seeger said he once performed a concert in Trail. But when?

While Trail has had several famous hotels, here is a list of some others that didn't receive nearly the same attention.

Kütne Reader reader Bob Guesford recently pointed out something to me that I never noticed: two giant walls from the old Strand Theatre in downtown Trail still stand. The site of the Strand, 1330 Cedar Ave. was formerly home to Trail Opera House, built in 1917, and later renamed the Liberty Theatre. After remodelling and a major expansion, it reopened in 1938 as the three-storey, 900-seat Strand, a movie house managed by Will Harper for Famous Players. While the lobby stood

1930s stage and film actress Victoria Hopper (1909-2007) spent part of her childhood in Trail. Although the city has done an excellent job of celebrating the successes of its native sons and daughters, her Kootenay connection has mostly flown beneath the radar. Victoria Hopper depicted on a 1934 tobacco card promoting the film Lorna Doone . Hopper was born in Vancouver to Matthew Garfield (Gar) Hopper and Elizabeth Jane Rutherford, who were both from Dunston-on-Tyne England.

Here are some more in a series of negatives I bought on eBay last year showing Trail in 1953. These two views show the west side of the 1200 block of Pine Avenue. The building on the corner and the one to the right of it are Carberry’s Flowers and Carberry Funeral Home at 1298 Pine. BC Assessment gives a construction date of 1948 for the funeral home, but I am presuming that is only the portion on the right. The home was either torn down or renovated beyond recognition into

Here is another photo from a series of negatives I recently purchased showing Trail in 1953. Pictured is the intersection of Bay and Spokane streets, with the Arlington Hotel on the right. If we didn’t otherwise know the date, we’d be able to tell based on the license plate on one of the parked cars. Here is the view today from the same spot. The chief differences are the top two storeys have been lopped off the Arlington (more on that below), exposing the West Kootenay Powe

I bought a bunch of negatives showing Trail in 1953 (judging by the license plates on the cars in one of the shots) and had them scanned this week. Seen below is one of the more interesting shots, of the 1300 block of Bay Avenue. From left, we have the Bluebird Cafe, Mandy’s Recreations (snooker/bowling/billiards/food bar), the Salvation Army, three buildings with no visible signage, and the Crown Point Hotel. Going to the 1953 civic directory (coincidentally the only one ava

Went for a walk with my wife in Trail’s Sunningdale neighbourhood and came across this curious building at 632 Isabella Crescent. It was clearly once a commercial building of some sort. (Trail has quite a few such buildings in residential areas that have been turned into homes.) 632 Isabella Crescent, as seen from the Monte Road side, looking southwest. Intrigued, I checked the BC Assessment site, which indicates it was built in 1951, although I subsequently discovered it was

Several of bestselling BC crime historian Eve Lazarus’ books have West Kootenay connections. I’ve discussed one before, how Canada’s Sherlock Holmes , Insp. John F.C.B. Vance, once worked at as assistant chemist in Trail. In a later post, I’ll detail a case she wrote about in Sensational Vancouver , about how a man wanted for murder in the US was caught in Yahk and then deported to face execution. Lazarus’ latest book, Murder by Milkshake , recounts the story of Rene Castella

Is anything more nostalgic (at least to certain generations) than a drive-in theatre? From 1947 to 2003, at least 10 of them operated in West Kootenay/Boundary. The peak era was the late 1950s, when six were in business simultaneously (among 32 in the province, including a few more in East Kootenay). Four survived into the 1980s, and the last two into the early 2000s. Today the sites are home to trailer parks, a campground, and a Walmart, among other things. However, two scre

On Sept. 29, 1958, CJAT Trail opened a new studio in the former post office at 1300 Cedar Ave. They also marked their 25th anniversary as a commercial station (they first went on air on Christmas Day 1931 as an amateur station known as 10AT). To commemorate the occasion, several Capitol Records artists and others recorded greetings to air on the station between music and commercials. CJAT broadcast centre, 1958 (Greg Nesteroff collection) Ken Hughes, who worked at CJAT, kept

In 1962-63, the American jingle house of Richard H. Ullman Associates produced a series of cheesy but oh-so-catchy songs to promote radio and television stations and the towns they served. They presumably aired on those stations and were also issued as 45 rpm singles. The music was virtually identical; only the lyrics were tailored to fit the town. Some were embraced as civic anthems (notably in Regina) but in the pre-Internet world, people probably had no idea that their son

You heard it here last: Larry Kwong , the NHL’s first player of Asian descent and the oldest Trail Smoke Eaters alumnus, died on March 15, 2018 in Calgary, age 94. Kwong played for Trail in 1941-42 and 1945-46. I was reminded of him today when I came across the team program for 1946-47 at the Selkirk College Archives, which featured his picture and biography (seen at right and below). Though he only stood 5-foot-6, Kwong had a giant nickname: King Kwong. The Vernon native wa

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

Lauriente’s was synonymous with business in the Gulch in Trail from the early 1900s until the men’s wear store by that name at 730 Rossland Avenue finally closed in 1996. But the tile in front remains. The building became an ill-fated youth centre, then was sold to a car restorer, and is now the Salvation Army Community Services centre. In addition to the clothing store, the Laurientes ran a grocery one block over. Two generations were involved in their operation. In 2008, I

The old Trail Legion (also known as the Memorial Hall) was built in 1924 on Victoria Avenue to honour those killed during the First World War. “This memorial … means a recognition by the citizens of the sacrifices made by the fathers and mothers and relatives of those men who fell, fellow citizens,” the Trail News of April 6, 1923 wrote as a fundraising campaign kicked off. “But it means even more than that, it means a place where the descendants of heroes will be able to ac