Canadian Pacific Railway Station
Heritage Railway Station of Canada
Grand Forks, British Columbia
General view of the place
(© Parks Canada Agency / Agence Parcs Canada, C.A. Hale, 1991.)
Address :
7654 Donaldson Drive, Grand Forks, British Columbia
Recognition Statute:
Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. 52 (4th Supp.))
Designation Date:
1991-06-10
Dates:
-
1900 to 1900
(Construction)
Event, Person, Organization:
-
Canadian Pacific Railway
(Organization)
-
Columbia and Western Railway
(Organization)
Other Name(s):
-
Columbia and Western Railway Station
(Other Name)
Research Report Number:
RS-049
Description of Historic Place
The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) station at Grand Forks, British Columbia was built by the Columbia and Western Railway in 1900. It is a modest 1 ½ storey frame building with a steep gabled roof and “Swiss” details located at 7654 Donaldson Dr.
Heritage Value
The CPR station at Grand Forks has been designated a heritage railway station because of its historical significance, aesthetic quality and importance in the community.
The former Columbia and Western Railway station at Grand Forks, later owned by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), was constructed in 1900. At the time it was built, the community of Grand Forks was expanding into a robust distribution and refining centre for Boundary District ore and agricultural produce. The station symbolizes the strategic position of Grand Forks within the Boundary District, the intense rivalry between competing rail lines to obtain the district’s mining business, and the importance of rail transportation to the development of a mining industry in British Columbia's southern interior at the turn of the century. The station is a modest but attractive frame building with decorative "Swiss Chalet" elements, a style common among Columbia and Western stations of the Boundary District in the early 1900s. Grand Forks station is one of the few remaining examples.
The heritage character of the Grand Forks station resides in those features which relate to its original design - on the exterior its simple form, roof shape and finish materials and on the interior remnants of original layout and finish. The heritage value also lies in the visual relationship between the station and its setting.
Source: :
· Heritage Character Statement, Grand Forks Canadian Pacific Railway Station, 16 January 1992. Heritage Assessment Report RSR-49, 1991.
Character-Defining Elements
Character-defining elements of the Grand Forks Canadian Pacific Railway Station include: the irregular rectangular footprint, 1 ½ storey massing, and steep gable roof cut by dormers and layered by the similar but lower line of the baggage shed, its simple form and modest proportions, the intricacy and prominence of its roof definition from all four perspectives (3 dormers trackside, 2 dormers roadside, brackets on the roof gable ends, layered roof edge on the north), the balance inherent in its vertical definition and aligned aperture placement, smooth aesthetic integration of special railway features such as a projecting telegrapher’s bay and lengthening of the eave depth of the baggage room to provide passenger shelter, the picturesque “Swiss” inspiration of its details: layered roof forms, multi-paned windows, prominent brackets, broad eaves, gable forms, the integrity of its original materials: clapboard walls set with a vertical wainscot over the telegrapher’s bay, wooden doors and trim, legibility of the lettering "Grand Forks" on the north façade, the station’s platform frame construction technology, any and all original fabric surviving inside the station on the upper floor but most particularly in the railway spaces, the station’s dual function as a railway and living space, legibility of any remaining indications of the station’s original interior functional and spatial configuration.