Oldest Commercial Building on Main Street

It started life as the Dominion Garage in 1927, under the ownership of Tony Schmaltz, and was originally a dealership for Hudson Motors.  Later, it become the General Motors dealership under the ownership of Sam & E.M. Kreuger and eventually Louis L. Schmaltz, who sold International Harvester farm machinery as well.  There were gas pumps out front and a small tire shop on the west side.  The black-and-white picture of the building, at right, is dated around 1930. 

It closed over fifty years ago and the building sat vacant for many years.  It was used by the Village to store all the theatre equipment (seats, projector, etc.) from the Memorial Hall.
Ron Rice and a partner from Manitoba bought it and opened the Big Country Auto Body Shop there in 1973.  Afterward, it was reincarnated again as the Big Country Mall.

It is the oldest building still standing on Main Street.  Almost all the other old structures on Main Street were destroyed by fires over the years.

Here's a trivia question for you;  Where on Main Street was Beiseker's rifle range?  (Answer)

(The black-and-white photo above was taken from a scan of the book Beiseker's Golden Heritage, so forgive the poor quality. -Rhys)