2 How Foon’s Laundry
491 1st Avenue | Now in use as
Fernie Elks Lodge 4 THE IMPERIAL BANK 1909
401 2nd Ave | Now in use as
The Brickhouse Bar & Grill
The Chinese entrepreneur How Foon
established several businesses in this
building constructed in 1908. He ran a
café, laundry and shoemaking shop on
the main floor and rented apartments
upstairs. The Fernie Elks Club
purchased the building and removed
the dividing walls to open the interior
for use as a hall. The exterior surface,
though, retains its original outline and
the original advertising mural for ‘Royal
Crown Soap.’ Across 5th street at The
1909 Royal Hotel, note the tops of the
filled-in windows along the base of the
building indicating that the street was
once lower than it is today. On August 1, 1908, on the corner of
2nd Ave and 4th St, the members of
the Fernie Fire Department made
their last stand in the figh