A Train Ride Back in Time

Creston Mercantile, Messinger Motors, Creston Builders Supply”. These names that were an integral part of the Creston business district 60 to 65 years ago are now only a distant memory to many Creston residents.

Visitors to the Creston Museum will see the Seventh Siding Trackers recreation of the west end of Canyon Street, Erickson, Alice Siding and Kootenay Landing in their model railway project, “Creston Valley By Rail”. The 10 club members have been working for over two years to show what Creston and the surrounding area looked like in the 1945-55 era.

The layout, located in the A-Frame building above the main Museum, shows visitors several businesses that are no longer operating. They will discover that the present chamber office, before it was Home Hardware and Creston Builders, was a Shell oil bulk plant that was operated by Charles Messinger and then Ray McKelvey. The CPR station and water tower were located between the tracks and Railway Boulevard, across from Cresteramics. The largest store in Creston, the Mercantile, took up most of the block where the Creston Bakery and the Rotary Park are located. In 1949, it was one of several town landmarks that have over the years, succumbed to the scourge of all wood frame buildings, fire. Others being the Crawford Block, where the Royal Bank now stands on December 31, 1955, and Sunset Seed in December of 2008.

On the same block as the Mercantile was the office of Guy Constable. This was an Insurance, Notary Public, and Creston Diking District office along with various other community endeavors. It was situated approximately where the ABC parking lot is now, and if one looks closely you will see Mr. Constable at the office door, surveying the comings and goings on Canyon Street.

Much of Creston’s industrial business was located alongside the tracks because CPR was the primary source of transportation coming into and leaving the valley. Creston Sawmills was located trackside and extended out to what is now 16th Avenue. Since it closed in 1991 several businesses have located on the former mill site, Extra Foods, Lordco and College of the Rockies, to name a few. The sawmill is depicted in the layout complete with beehive burner and millpond, which was used prior to the use of large log moving machinery.
Sunset Seed, known to locals as the “Pea Shed”, was built in the 1940’s to process large crops of seed peas grown on the Creston Flats. After the peas were phased out, it became a feed and seed processing plant.

The area that is now the town parking lot behind Fields was, until the early 1970’s, home to the Creston Co-operative Fruit Exchange. It was the valley’s largest fruit packing plant, processing different varieties of tree fruits for world and domestic markets.

On the outer extremes of the layout are two interesting models, depicting Kootenay Landing and the Canyon Power Dam. Kootenay Landing was located at the mouth of the Kootenay River at the entrance to the lake. Prior to 1931 there were no tracks on the west side of the lake so the train engine had to be turned around at Kuskanook and the cars backed across a long trestle to a wharf where they were offloaded onto a barge and taken up the lake to Nelson by sternwheeler or CPR tug boat. When the rail line was completed in 1931 this made Kootenay Landing redundant and it was abandoned.

On the other end of our layout stands the Canyon Dam and powerhouse. Constructed in the 1930s, it was the valley’s primary source of electric power until the early 1950s. This model is one of several that is built entirely by club members without benefit of a model kit. Our buildings are built from scratch, “kit bashed”, which is using kits, but modifying them to suit our needs, or model kits as they come from the package. After assembly they have to be painted and weathered simulate our time period.

The work that we have done over the past two and half years has
been made possible by the assistance and support of Columbia Basin Trust, the Museum, Tammy Hardwick and businesses and individuals in the community.
For their help we express sincere thanks.

The project is open to the public during the Museum season, from May to September and we invite everyone down to see how Creston’s history has been brought to life.

...remember to pick up your copy of the I Love Creston magazine, available for free at most retailers in Creston!