As a follow-up to a pair of recent posts on lost buildings of the last 25 years that I photographed and others that I neglected to photograph, here are 13 buildings and one bridge that were still standing when I first published this, but have either since disappeared or may not be around much longer. I will stress that I am not making any value judgments about whether they should be preserved, but merely pointing out that their futures are uncertain at best.

CASTLEGAR

Pioneer Arena, 925 Columbia Avenue

Castlegar’s first indoor ice surface was built over several years in the 1950s and early ‘60s using a lot of donations and volunteer labour. It became a secondary ice surface when the recreation complex opened in the mid-1970s. In 2016, the Pioneer was marked for closure due to its aging infrastructure, but it kept plugging along. The city announced in October 2023 that it planned to demolish the building and replace it with a new complex with clinical spaces on the ground floor and 45 housing units on the upper floor. Ice users protested the move since there were no immediate plans to replace the arena (a couple of previous referenda on the subject failed). The Pioneer received a one-year reprieve.  

UPDATE: The arena closed March 2, 2025 and is to be demolished beginning in August. Plans for what will go up on the site have changed. What was initially envisioned as one building combining medical offices and housing will instead be two separate buildings, which the city says will make it easier to access funding. You can watch my presentation to city council on the Pioneer’s history below.

Eremenko block, 310 Columbia Avenue/1224 3rd Street, Castlegar

This building on Columbia, long a department store, was built in 1948 as A. Eremenko & Co. Ltd. By the 1980s, it was Fields. In the 2000s, West’s Travel was there but the building was vacant for many years when the City of Castlegar bought it in April 2021, planning to move the Kootenay Gallery to the site and develop housing. It wasn’t immediately clear that the building would be torn down, but that detail later emerged. Planning has continued while the city has sought funding. An adjacent 3rd Street building, which was once Eremenko Fit-Rite Shoes, was built in 1968 and operated at least until 1993. It too has long been vacant.

UPDATE: On Aug. 11, 2025, the City of Castlegar awarded an $825,000 contract to demolish the building. But the new Kootenay Gallery will no longer be part of the project. Instead, they have acquired the former Woods nightclub (nee the Element, nee the City Centre Mall, nee Bob’s Pay ‘n’ Take It) across the street, built in 1955.

CRESTON

Grain elevator

The Columbia Basin Trust bought Creston’s iconic grain elevators in 2018. Both dated to the mid-1930s. While the Trust embarked on an extensive restoration of one of them, they decided that the other was beyond salvage and planned to demolish it.

UPDATE: As of March 19, 2025, the elevator seen at right is gone.

FRUITVALE

Beaver Valley Middle School, 275 West Columbia Gardens Road

Opened in 1970 as Beaver Valley Junior Secondary. Renamed Valley Middle School in 1993 and then Beaver Valley Middle School in 1994. Closed in 2003. Sold in 2009 to someone who wanted to turn it into an international school for Korean students. Acquired by the Village of Fruitvale in 2018 through a public foreclosure process. Leased to the Lower Columbia Affordable Housing Society in 2020 for a new housing project, although it was unclear at first whether it would involve repurposing the existing building or demolishing and building new. After the gym roof collapsed in the winter of 2023, village council decided to demolish the compromised half of the building at a cost of $1.2 million.

UPDATE: As of April 2025, demolition had begun, and the Village of Fruitvale was asking people to stay away from the site. They said the structure is “severely compromised.” Someone also broke into the gym, crawling over collapsed roofing, and swiped supplies and equipment from the contractor.

NELSON

Curling club, 302 Cedar Street

Built in 1973. A recent structural assessment and geotechnical review found serious problems with the foundation, walls, and roof. The City of Nelson, which owns the building, hasn’t decided its fate but it has been closed to curling since spring 2023. Ironic given the Midsummer Bonspiel, which ran from 1945 to 2008, was once the city’s biggest event.

Homes, 710 and 712 Railway Street

The City of Nelson bought these little homes in 2014 to prevent the properties from being developed contrary to the a Railtown plan completed a couple of years later. The homes were built in 1910 and 1927. The city looked at demolishing them but decided it would be a hassle given slope stability issues, tree removal, and “hazardous conditions” within the buildings. The city’s heritage working group asked the city in 2017 to save them and prepared statements of significance. In 2021, the city indicated it would sell them with the stipulation the buyer had to demolish. The listing is still on the city website, but at last check the houses were still standing.

224 Vernon Street

I don’t know much about the history of this house at the corner of Vernon and Kootenay streets. It’s seen below on Dec. 10, 2022, and May 2, 2024. BC Assessment says it was built in 1901, which is usually code for “we have no idea how old it is.”

Some of the occupants over the years: contractor Vincent Eperson (1913-15), J.B. Adams and family (1938-40), assayer John O. Dolphin and his wife (1951-53), and CPR conductor Hector Stewart and his wife Bertha (1955). It was listed for sale in 1962 through C.W. Appleyard & Co. for $6,900. Margaret McCauley was the owner from at least 1984-89.

The house was last sold in July 2022 and a demolition permit was applied for later that year, based on an architect’s report that said the house was not salvageable. The city’s heritage working group expressed concern that it was brought to them as a done deal rather than for discussion. However, the building still stands, although it is boarded up and for sale again. The real estate ad says it “has a bit of charm left inside with original fir flooring and staircase” but “definitely needs some love.” To my eyes, it actually has a lot of charm left, but yes, some love would be welcome.

NEW DENVER

House of Joyful Tidings

One of about 250 huts constructed in 1942 in New Denver for interned Japanese Canadians, this building was later placed under the care of the United Church and became a meeting place for residents of the Orchard neighbourhood. It fulfilled that function into the 1970s. By the early 2010s, it defaulted to the village for unpaid taxes. Someone bought it in a tax sale and wanted to build on the lot. In 2022, the Friends of the Orchard stepped in to explore saving the building.

After a few potential ideas for places to put it were rejected, they struck a deal with the village to turn it into accommodation for the campground attendant. The building now sits near the marina parking lot. However, two years later with the original vision not close to reality, and the village insisting that it be moved, the Friends of the Orchard are offering to sell the building for $1 to anyone who wants it. This does not preclude someone from dismantling it for the lumber.

TRAIL

Trail Mercantile/Eaton’s/Towne Square Mall/Liquidation World, 900 Spokane Street

In August 2024, the City of Trail announced it had acquired this very run-down building and its site in a donation from its owner. While the brick building has significant heritage value, having been built in 1916 for the Trail Mercantile Co. and converted to Eaton’s in 1954 and then the Towne Square Mall in 1982, the city plans to demolish it and redevelop the site. What will take its place is not yet known, but it will probably have a housing component. The building’s age is more obvious from the rear. The exterior pictures were taken on Sept. 10, 2020 and Sept. 4, 2024. The interiors were taken on March 26, 2025.

Below are two CHBC commericals for the Towne Square Mall from the mid-1980s, although unfortunately they don’t show the building.

There’s now a large photo mural on the side of the building showing it when it was Eaton’s.

UPDATE: On April 28, 2025, the City of Trail awarded a $1.8 million demolition contract for both the Trail Mercantile/Eaton’s/Towne Square Mall/Liquidation World and the the C.S. Williams clinic to Local Industrial partners Ltd. of Genelle. 

Aldridge Hotel/C.S. Williams clinic, 901 Helena

The building at the corner of Helena and Cedar was Trail’s first hospital, constructed by Dr. Corsan in 1896. MP and newspaper publisher Billy Esling bought it and converted it into the Aldridge Hotel around 1916 but it soon reverted to its original use and was used as an auxiliary hospital during the flu epidemic of 1918. By 1922, Esling sold the building to a consortium of doctors who converted it into a clinic and nurses residence. It was the site of perhaps the city’s most notorious crime (which you can read about here, as part of a more comprehensive history). In 1938, it became the C.S. Williams Clinic, and in 1949 a multi-storey addition was built on the east side. 

The clinic was in business for over 50 years but finally merged with Medical Associates in the mid-1990s and the property was donated to Selkirk College which did nothing with it and then sold it to someone who planned to turn it into housing but failed to do so. The city now owns the buildings, which are boarded up and fenced off, but has been reluctant to demolish them given the cost and modest redevelopment potential of the site. It’s a shame, for the Aldridge portion is possibly Trail’s second-oldest building. The photos seen here are from 2020-21 except for the sign on the door, which was taken in October 2000.

UPDATE: On April 28, 2025, the City of Trail awarded a $1.8 million demolition contract for both the C.S. Williams clinic and the Trail Mercantile/Eaton’s/Liquidation World to Local Industrial partners Ltd. of Genelle. As of May 27, fencing was in place around the C.S. Williams clinic and a subcontractor had started hazardous materials abatement, which was expected to continue through mid-July.

On Aug. 14, 2025, an excavator began tearing the roof off the oldest part of the clinic. When I returned two days later, that building had already been reduced to a pile of sticks, while gaping holes had been exposed in the 1949 addition.

Glenmerry Elementary

This building opened in 1956 as either a four or five-room school (sources disagree). It went up in a hurry: the contract was awarded to Oglow Brothers of Castlegar in May, and the school opened in September. Two more classrooms and an activity room were added in 1962, but I don’t know the history of subsequent expansions and renovations. 

Glenmerry is the only remaining elementary school in Trail following the closures of Tadanac, Sunningdale, Laura J. Morrish, and Central. Half a dozen portables were added to keep up with the growing student population. 

Construction on a new school started in 2022 on the field behind the old school. The old school closed on June 20, 2025 and is slated for demolition. The new school (seen below peeking out overtop the old one) will open in September 2025.

Rotary Villa

This 23-unit seniors housing complex in Shavers Bench was built by the Rotary Club in 1958. It is to be replaced with a three-storey 41-unit seniors housing complex, expected to be completed in 2027.

UPDATE: As of July 25, 2025, the buildings seen above are gone. Two other rows of units, not pictured, are still standing.

Old bridge

The bridge was built in 1913 and closed in 2010 on an engineer’s recommendation but there has been no appetite to demolish it. (Interestingly, while it is apparently unsafe even for pedestrians to cross, boats are still allowed to go underneath it.) While the engineers suggested fixing it would be impossible, so long as it hasn’t collapsed, who knows? A Trail Historical Society subcommittee wants to take a fresh look at it. It is seen here in April 2000, June 16 and Sept. 21, 2021; May 10, 2022; and March 2, 2024.

The Brilliant Suspension Bridge, now a National Historic Site, is an instructive example. It ceased to be a highway bridge in the 1960s but the government had neither the heart nor the funds to tear it down, so it just sat awaiting a determined group to restore it. It reopened to pedestrians in 2010 following a $1 million restoration.

— With thanks to Colin McClure

Updated on March 7, 2025 to add 224 Vernon Street in Nelson, to add details about the impending doom of the C.S. Williams clinic and Trail Mercantile, and to add the Pioneer Arena video link. Updated on March 27, 2025 to add the interior photos of the Trail Mercantile. Updated on April 2, 2025 to add the Towne Square Mall commercials. Updated on June 3, 2025 to add further details about the demolition of the C.S. Williams clinic, Trail Mercantile, and Pioneer Arena. Updated on June 16, 2025 to add Rotary Villa. Updated on June 19, 2025 to add Glenmerry Elementary. Updated on Aug. 3, 2025 to provide the latest on demolitions in Castlegar and Trail. Updated on Aug. 16, 2025 to add photos of the demolition of the C.S. Williams clinic.