Description of Historic Place

The Municipal Hall is a one-storey brick building with a gable roof located within a grouping of three institutional buildings - the Municipal Hall, Court House and Post Office - on Hudson Street NE in downtown Salmon Arm, British Columbia.

Heritage Value

The Municipal Hall is significant for its historical, aesthetic and social values.

Built in 1928, Salmon Arm's original Municipal Hall is valued as the first permanent home of the council of the District Municipality of Salmon Arm since the City's incorporation in 1912. Municipal Council had previously met in such diverse sites as the Exchange Building, the Agricultural Hall and the Bank of Hamilton. This building was no longer used for local government purposes after the consolidation of the Village of Salmon Arm with the District Municipality in 1970.

The Municipal Hall, together with the Court House and Post Office, have historical value through their connection as three institutions representing three levels of government located in close proximity to one another. As a group, the formal relationship of the buildings to each other, at the intersection of Hudson Avenue NE and Shuswap Street in the core of the downtown, is important for its representation of a civic precinct of buildings with related historical and current uses.

The location of the building is also important. It was the earliest government building to be constructed, situated in the southwest corner of the Agnes McGuire property in the downtown core of Salmon Arm, at the then-prominent intersection of Shuswap Street and Okanagan Avenue. Here, streets running parallel to or perpendicular with the lakeshore and railway tracks, and associated with the initial development of Salmon Arm, meet the later survey grid.

Constructed by local builder William Reader, the Municipal Hall is important aesthetically for its Arts and Crafts influenced design and its brick building material, thought to have been sourced from the Enderby brickyard. The complex floor plan indicates the spatial requirements for early municipal departments. Overall, the building is domestic in scale and style. While thought to be "the best they could [do] with the means available," the building retains a small-town charm and is unique as a municipal building.

The building also has social value through its ongoing community use, first as a municipal hall and later as the local Seniors' Drop-In Centre.

Source: City of Salmon Arm, Development Services Department

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Municipal Hall include its:

Site:
- location in an enclave on Hudson Avenue NE in downtown Salmon Arm
- surrounding landscape features of trees, shrubs and lawn
- siting, facing onto Hudson Avenue NE
- relationship to the Court House and Post Office across Hudson Avenue NE

Building
- L-shaped floor plan
- gable roof with gable dormers and brick chimney
- gable front entry with decorative half-timbering
- shingle roof material
- brick construction material
- wood-frame windows