09/03/2023
Our back to school special is this 1920's hand tinted photo postcard showing Kelowna's Central Elementary School. Designed by architect George E. Nobles of Lethbridge, and built in 1913 by contractor Alfred Ivey, Central Public School was intended to impress. It adopted classical features of the Neoclassical and Georgian Revivals, set within the formality of Beaux-Arts planning. The cost of the two-storey brick building and its furnishings was a high $75,000. It was set on a raised earth mound on a 4-acre site, the broad front steps flanked by massive columns. It had ten classrooms and an auditorium. The latest amenities were installed: electric lights, running water, and toilets and lavatories in the basement. (There must have been some distrust of such new-fangled devices, since the 1914 Fire Insurance Map shows that the more traditional outhouse buildings were located in the back field, one for each s*x, reached by wooden boardwalks from the building.)
Image MSC13007717_01 courtesy of the British Columbia Postcards Collection, a digital initiative of Simon Fraser University Library. http://digital.lib.sfu.ca/bcp-collection
