BRITISH AMERICAN OIL BUILDING

Firm: unknown

Address: 409 3 Street SW

Date: 1942 (1953)

Status: demolished circa 1980

I've mostly been able to piece together the history of this building, with a few gaps. The structure was built in 1942 for Commercial Tire (Alberta) Ltd. The original building had a frontage of 50' and was 100' deep. In the gallery below there's a photo of it. The last year Commerical was listed at the address was 1948. In 1949 the building was taken over by the Alberta Co-op Wholesale Association. In June 1950 the building was put up for sale and in the advertisement there was mention of fire damage. In 1951 the building was listed as vacant, and then in 1952 the occupant was a company called Flash Heat (Alberta) Limited.

British American Oil first appears at this address in 1953. By this time the building looked substantially different, and I assume it was BA that completed the modifications. The original 50' building had 15' added to the north side, bringing the frontage to 65'. In all likelihood they brought the building down to its frame and rebuilt it.

I haven't been able to find out who did the redesign for British American.

In September 1962 BA moved out of this building into the new British American Oil Building, which was the east tower of the Elveden Centre. Today this tower is called Iveagh House. The original BA Building stood until around 1980. The site is now occupied by Northland Place.