921 Silica Street

921 Silica Street

Style: Colonial Revival

This house is in the F. H. Latimer Survey- First Addition to the Town site 1891-1895.

Walter Manville Myers, a local Mining Engineer for A. H. Green and Company, and wife Nora, built this house in 1928. The Assessment Records of 1929 give a value of $5,000.00 for the house and $300.00 for lot 13 and $225.00 for each of lots 14 and 15. Prior to the construction of this house this section of Silica Street was owned by the Columbia and Kootenay Railway and Navigation Company.

Walter Manville Myers was a member of the Coroner’s Jury at the Inquest into the explosion on the Kettle Valley Rail Line at Farron, B.C., on October 29, 1924. This was the explosion that killed Peter, the Lordly, Verigin, the spiritual leader of the Doukhobors. This, more extensive phase of the official Inquest, was held at Nelson, B.C., while an earlier Inquest into the matter of Peter Verigin’s death, was held at Grand Forks, B.C., on the evening of October 29, 1924.

Mr. Myers, along with fellow Jurors, advised Coroner Henry Hector MacKenzie, that William J. Armstrong, Neil E. Murray, Mary Strelaeff and Henry J. Bishop “came to their death as a result of a discharge by some person or persons unknown either with intent or through ignorance.” This case remains one of Canada’s unsolved mysteries.

Another resident of note was Jean Pierre Rivers and his wife, Frances Marie. The Rivers were long standing residents. For over 25 year Mr. and Mrs. Rivers operated the restaurant in the Greyhound Bus Depot located, at the time, on Baker Street. This restaurant was well known in the City for its fine dining and excellent service.

Mrs. Rivers was known in the City for her volunteer work with the Canadian Cancer Society, the local Church and with community events. She was honoured in 1992 with a Governor General’s Award for her dedication, service and significant contributions to the community.

This house is an excellent example of how a house built on the eve of the Depression can be sensitively restored and transformed into a functional and comfortable living space in which to raise a young family.

Although this house is young by Nelson standards it has witnessed the City pull itself up by the bootstraps on more than one occasion and become the prosperous and unique place we call home today.

This home was part of the 2008 Heritage Home Tour.

To learn more about the death of Peter, The Lordly, Verigin please vist this site:
http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/verigin/indexen.html ; Rivers Obituary, The Nelson Daily News, 27 July 1998.