Day Tour

Touring the Town of Vermilion

• Beginning on the corner of 49^th Avenue and 50^th Street is the McWilliams & Long building (small white one on the corner). It survived the fire in 1918. It began as a harness shop.
• Craig’s (on the corner of 50th Street and 50th Avenue) – John & William Craig arrived in 1905 and established the store. The great fire destroyed the original building so they built a 30 x 120 ft store out of fire resistant brick. The family still owns the store today.
• From the corner look west to the north side of the street and see the architecture of the Bell Building with its decorative corbelled brick cornice and tapestry brick patterned panels. It was originally a doctor’s office and he did surgery in the back room.
• Next door is the W.E. Mackenzie Block – now Kins Restaurant. It was built in 1920 for a cousin of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (William Ewan Mackenzie). Harry Doan later occupied it as a milliner – expanding into handmade ladies wear, gowns, frocks and coats.
• Moren Block – erected in 1950 for Moren’s electrical appliance shop. They installed one of the towns’ first televisions. It was thought they were too far from the broadcasting station for reception but they were able to tune into daily programs.
• CIBC – originally established in 1905 in a shed at the railway station. In 1906 they operated where the Scotiabank is now. Although the building wasn’t damaged in the fire, they took advantage of all the new building in town and built the current structure in 1918.
• The Vermilion Standard established in 1905 as a printing business. It sold in 1909 to Mr. Cooper who began publishing the paper. Some of the first businesses to advertise were The Brunswick Hotel, Long’s and Craig’s. It will be celebrating their centennial this year! The current building was erected in 1916 on the outskirts of town and therefore did not perish in the fire – it remains one of the oldest buildings in town.
• Imperial Block – built in 1912 by British Capitalists and was intended for use as luxury offices and an apartment block. It was built from local bricks from the Vermilion Factory (1906 – 1914) at a cost of $25,000. It was used to house students at the School of Agriculture (Lakeland College) until 1928 when residences were built on campus.
• Safeway Block – in 1929 the national grocery store chain moved in but closed its doors in 1941 due to a combination of a weak economy and pressure from local independent shop owners who regarded the store as an interloper.