Wells Heritage Townsite - ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY - A SUMMARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY SITE CONTENTS LOCATION MAP MEASURED DRAWINGS TEACHER'S CORNER ARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION DESIGN TEAM HOME		Wells is a gold rush company town constructed between 1934 - 1938. The architecture is uniform. The same building materials and details are the same on most structures. Only three or four lumberyards supplied materials and about six carpenters constructed almost all the buildings. British Columbia Archives #i_27131 Two companies, Northey Construction and Gardner Construction, were contracted by the Cariboo Gold Quartz Company to build about forty Wells houses. Both used a standard "pattern" house design. Excluding the Wells Hotel, all structures were locally designed by the contractor or owner. Like other western settlement towns of simple origins, a few buildings can be characterized as modest adaptations of national popular styles. The few that do make references to 'high style' interpret the style according to period/cultural attitudes, physical and climactic conditions and availability of materials. Almost all but the Wells Hotel can be labeled vernacular, although the false-fronted commercial buildings must be seen as a self-conscious reference to the boom town vernacular - perhaps inspired by Barkerville. This self-conscious use of the false-front facade elevates it to the level of a 'style'. Wood frame, false-fronted commercial structures are an architectural innovation of the American West. They first developed in the gold rush towns of California and appeared thereafter in gold rush towns from California to the Klondike. The form dominated western towns from 1849 to 1898, but disappeared as these towns developed into stable communities or simply died. It was not considered a 'style' to emmulate and carried connotations of 'boom' development - instability and a transient population. Early B.C. towns from the 1860's to the 1930's were constructed using false fronts for their commercial buildings. In most towns, however, this was a transition phase, from the rudimentary structures; log buildings and tents of the townsite phase, through to the frame structures of the village phase and then into the substantial masonry buildings of the civic phase. The frame town appears affluent, but temporary. This style characterizes the Wells commercial building stock.

Last updated 1 March 1999. This digital collection was produced under contract to the Canada's Digital Collections Program, Industry Canada. Produced by Canada's Digital Collections Team. Content provided by BC Heritage Trust and Heritage Branch, Province of British Columbia.