The
Bank of Commerce Building
Prefabricated kit buildings were all the rage in the
early part of the last century.
A town needs a bank and in Rivers in the topic was discussed at one of
the earliest council meetings in 1908. When merchants pledged their
support the Canadian Bank of Commerce began business in Rivers in the
newly constructed Korman Block. They soon decided erect their own
building and they wasted no time. The decision was made in the spring
and the handsome new building was open in July.
How was that possible?
The building is one of the few that remain from some seventy
prefabricated wooden branches opened by the CIBC across the Prairies in
the boom years before World War I. They were based on a standard
design, and shipped by rail from Vancouver by the B.C. Mills Timber and
Trading Company. The components, including numbered pre-painted panels,
arrived at Rivers in two boxcars and were said to have been erected by
a crew on a prepared foundation in two days.
The two-storey design was a nice addition to the town’s rapidly
expanding business district. Located on the corner of 2nd Avenue and
Main Street, near the railway facilities that sustained the town, the
building has seen several transformations, most recently to a private
dwelling, reflecting the evolution of the local economy.
The main floor contained the banking hall and manager’s office, with a
concrete-encased vault at the rear. The upstairs had generous living
quarters that could be used by the bank manager and his family or as
communal housing for the bank’s junior staff.
The Bank served the community and prospered until the “Dirty Thirties”
when both drought and depression hit the prairies. It closed in 1935.
Rivers was without a bank for over a decade. Local businesses helped to
pick up the slack by acting as cheque cashers. The Royal Bank of
Canada set up a small branch, in a different location, in 1948.
A brief item in a 1938 Rivers Gazette noted that the building: "is
being fixed up and we understand that will be used as an office by the
Rural Municipality of Daly." When renovations were
completed, the main level contained a council chamber and a doctor's
office. After about 1950 it housed a few private businesses before
being converted as housing.
Prime
Minister Louis St. Laurent on the steps of the old bank, then serving
as the Civic Offices.
It still
occupies its highly visible spot on the corner.
The Rivers Bank Robbery – A Foiled Attempt
The bank escaped a possible robbery attempt in August 1927. A man
named Jim Durno, one of a number of aliases, arrived in town by train
and slipped into the building's basement that evening. The town's
constable, M. W. Coldicott, lived next to the bank and noticed the man
acting suspiciously.
The constable called bank manager R. M. Tucker to see if he was
expecting a tradesman or a caretaker to visit. He wasn't. Tucker called
the bank and the ringing is said to have startled Druno, causing him to
flee. Waiting outside was Coldicott who discovered that the man had a
loaded pistol in his possession, though no safe-cracking tools.
The culprit was arrested and convicted
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