Fernie & Elk Valley Culture Guide Issue 8 - Spring/Summer 2018 | Page 23

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