Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 14
The B.C. Mills Prefabricated System: The Emergence of Ready-made Buildings in Western Canada
by G. E. Mills and D. W. Holdsworth
Abstract
Between 1904 and 1910 the Vancouver-based British Columbia Mills
Timber and Trading Company marketed a patented system of prefabricated
sectional buildings in western Canada. Initially this system was devised
as a means of supplying small inexpensive huts to incoming settlers in
newly opened agricultural regions. Such structures were prefabricated,
prepainted, packaged and shipped by rail to local distributors in towns
and villages throughout western Canada. With a set of accompanying
instructions, the purchaser could erect his dwelling in a minimum amount
of time with little assistance or equipment.
This sectional system was subsequently adapted to a variety of larger
permanent homes and ultimately to institutional and commercial
structures such as schools, churches and banks. It was with a series of
classical banks manufactured for the Canadian Bank of Commerce that the
system achieved its greatest success as an enduring western Canadian
landmark.
Submitted for publication 1974 by G. E. Mills, Canadian Inventory of
Historic Building, National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Ottawa and
D. W. Holdsworth, Department of Geography, University of British
Columbia.
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