691Reid Street
Description of Historic Place
William Couldwell Jr. House is an unadorned one-and-a-half storey wood frame house built in 1933 located on the southwest corner of Reid Street and Bowron Avenue in North Quesnel, BC. The historic place includes the building and the parcel of land it occupies.
Heritage Value
William Couldwell Jr. House is located in North Quesnel which is an older residential neighbourhood in the city. While not in its original form, the house is a physical reminder of the people who shaped the development of Quesnel.
The house is named for William Couldwell Jr. who arrived in Quesnel with his pioneering parents in 1912. Since William had previously completed his schooling in England, he went to work for J. A. Fraser’s General Store on Front Street at the age of thirteen until his father got a job in Fort George, BC. The family moved their possessions on a sternwheeler named ‘The Chilcoltin’ which took five days to reach their destination. While living in Fort George, William was the organist for the Knox United Church and he worked for Kennedy Blair Company until it went bankrupt in 1914. He also took correspondence courses in bookkeeping through Pitman College in Vancouver, BC.
When the Couldwell family later returned to Quesnel, William went to work at Marion’s Store performing general duties such as baling furs for shipment. In 1915 William worked at Northern Crown Bank which was located in a lean-to at Marion’s Store. When the bank merged with the Royal Bank in 1918, William was transferred to other branches in the province. He returned to Quesnel in 1933. The Couldwell family is recognized for their contribution to the development of the community with streets named in their honour.
Character-Defining Elements
The character-defining elements of William Couldwell Jr. House include:
- a substantially intact house;
- a fine example of small utilitarian type houses built in Quesnel during the 1930s;
- a one-and-a-half storey wood frame house;
- a window in the half storey, gambrel style roof, and brick chimney;
- wood clapboard exterior;
- asymmetrical façade with off-center doorway;
- a flat unadorned façade with three windows of different sizes and styles.