A century of history explored at the Bulkley Valley Museum

The Central Park Building in Smithers turns 100 this year.

In celebrating its centennial, the Bulkley Valley Museum is showcasing the building’s history and how it’s changed since being built in 1925.

“The exhibit goes through why and how the building was built,” said Museum Curator Kira Westby.

“It took them seven years to [start construction], and then there was some delays in the opening due to issues getting water to the building.”

The building opened as offices for provincial staff, the jail house, a courthouse, and a residence.

After the new courthouse and provincial offices building opened in 1974, Westby said there was a push to keep the old building in place.

“There was a big question mark on [the central park] building and what was going to happen to it,” she said.

“It was 50 years old at the time, a lot of back and forth in the community about if it could or should be saved and what uses it would be.”

Soon afterwards, the museum moved into the building from the Smithers Library and shared a space with the Smithers Art Gallery.

“We’re two of the original tenants who have been here the whole 50 years that it’s been the arts and culture building,” said Westby.

Since moving in, several pushes were made to have the building demolished with community pushback allowing it to remain standing today.

In 1982, the building closed for a year allowing renovations to take place for emergency fire exits to be added.

Excluding the fire exits, Westby said the only changes made have been functional but otherwise minimal.

“The dance space as we know it today was the courtroom space and even if you look at the far end, there’s two doors side by side which looks weird today because there used to be a wall for a jury room.”

Another example she pointed out was an elevated small window within the Museum space which was for the jail cell.

“Radiators, windows, there’s lots of the original features that are still here in the building, so you get that taste of heritage,” Westby said.

While looking through the building’s history, she also mentioned the museum has changed in that time.

“We didn’t open the windows every day like we do now and the museum today, we change our exhibits more frequently than they have in the past so we can mark occasions like this,” she added.

An issue that’s remained since the museum started is space, limiting how many donated items they can receive and what exhibits can be shown.

Infront of the building for a time was the Smithers Cenotaph which Westby said was used to help date photos of the Central Park Building.

Along with the exhibit, the Museum is planning an event on June 14th with the hope of doing tours through the building.

The exhibit runs until August 9th.