Behind the Facade Tour

Yesterday was an awesome day in Downtown Colville!  Over 50 community members joined in on the “Behind the Facade Tour” that Colville Together Organized.

The tour started at RE Lee Shoes.  Karen and Simon Abide shared a bit of the history of the RE Lee building and took us throughout the building.  We traipsed through the back door into the hobbit hideaway of an office space and down into the depths of the basement. We saw the stock rooms, the old shelving from the hardware store and technological advancement of the time, a concrete foundation.

They also took us into the beautiful apartment space that they have on the second level of the building. It was a wonderful tour, full of great information, history and fun.

After the RE Lee building tour, Terry Timmering, took us to his building which currently houses Hometown Computer.  He shared that his building was an extension of the Lee Hotel, now House of Music. He then took us up to the second floor.  In the 1920’s the hotel rooms where left and almost nothing has been done to them.  There was original floors, beautiful baseboards, lathe and plaster walls, and each room had the original porcelain sink.

Terry calls the place a “ghost hotel” and it was a bit spooky with the lack of electricity and the dun going down. He also shared the lower portion of the building with the tour and then led us to the basement.  His foundation was made of stone and had original coal shoots and the old boiler was still in place.

It was a wonderful time downtown and so awesome to see community members show and interest in the buildings and our history.