Description of Historic Place

The Kamloops Mining & Development Company is a three storey, gable-roofed building located on the western edge of the commercial district of Columbia Avenue in Rossland, B.C. The building sits on the north side of the street and is distinguished by its projecting bays on the second and third storeys and the evidence of former commercial space on the ground floor.

Heritage Value

The Kamloops Mining & Development Company building is recognized for its historic and social values to the community of Rossland.

Constructed in 1895 for the Kamloops Mining & Development Company (KMD), the heritage site is a reminder of the important administrative, economic, and executive position that Rossland held at the end of the nineteenth century. Its location near the US border and its seemingly unending richness of ore-laden geology made Rossland the ideal place for the headquarters of the KMD; the company transferred its business to Rossland from Kamloops in 1895, and its headquarters in 1897. The early presence of this international mining company (which also had contemporary offices in Republic, Washington) is a testament to the high value of the mining assays in Rossland at that time.

The heritage site is valued for its historic and social role as an early "supporting business" for the mining activity on Red Mountain - providing local assessment work and professional mining expertise for claim owners and those interested in investment in hard rock mining. One of the uses of this building as the 'assay office', the place where ore was scientifically analyzed for its precious metal content, reflects the importance of educated professionals such as mining engineers in ensuring that mines could be established, grow and prosper in the boom town. The heritage site is also significant as the place of business of Charles C. Woodhouse, a mining engineer and assayer from Washington State, who was celebrated as the 'best known mining engineer on the Coast'. Woodhouse was also one of the founding members of the KMD.

Further heritage value lies in the physical location of the heritage site at the western end of Columbia Avenue as once part of a contiguous grouping of commercial buildings of Rossland's main street and commercial downtown during the boom town era. It is valued as one of only two of Rossland's oldest surviving buildings (along with the Lemon Block) which mark Rossland's earliest commercial development on the western edge of town.

The heritage site is valued for its design which does not fit the typical false-fronted style of most other commercial buildings from this era. Its gable roof and decorative windows on the upper two stories are distinctive features which set this place apart from its contemporaries both in the past and now.

Since the 1930s, the upper storey offices have been used as apartments. In recent decades, the ground floor commercial space was converted to residential use. This evolution reflects the typical adaptation Rossland's built environment has made to changes in the local economy over time.

Character-Defining Elements

The elements that define the character of the Kamloops Mining & Development Company building include its:
- Original location on western edge of commercial district of Columbia Avenue
- Evidence of commercial use in its ground floor storefront
- Dual commercial and residential use for most of its history
- Sitting on a whole city lot
- Original infrastructure related to its original assay use, such as an underground vault behind the building
- Unique Victorian commercial design with a three-storey, gable-roofed form with ground level storefront
- Protruding square bay on the third storey and bay windows on its second storey
- Victorian proportioned (vertical/narrow) window openings where they survive
- Evidence of the building's evolution over time to accommodate changes to the grade of Columbia Avenue