Manitoba Municipal Heritage Site No. 277
|
Bank of Commerce Building
Designation Date: December 21, 2005 Built in 1912, the dignified Bank of Commerce Building, with its broad businesslike Neo-Classical facade, is an excellent Manitoba example of the impressive prefabricated branches opened across the West by the Canadian Bank of Commerce as it competed for clients among a rapidly growing settler population in the early 1900s. Using a few standardized plans by Darling and Pearson of Toronto, and manufactured building components made by the British Columbia Mills, Timber and Trading Co. for on-site assembly, the bank could respond quickly and economically to the development of new towns, establishing branches that conveyed a consistent corporate identity and often were the most imposing commercial buildings in their locales. More than 70 such buildings were constructed in the western Canada. The facility at The Pas, which retains considerable integrity and is situated in the heart of the business district, is a roomy, high-ceilinged structure with upper-storey residential space that once housed bank clerks. Closed as a bank in 1937, the site has since accommodated office and residential uses, including noted lawyers John Archibald Campbell and D’Arcy Bancroft. |
