One 100 years ago a distillery sat on the site of the Revelstoke RCMP detachment, but then Prohibition came along.
The Revelstoke Review of September 12, 1917 reported that the Revelstoke Wine and Spirit Company was ceasing operations and closing its business. The company started in 1901 and had a soda factory and distillery in a building on Campbell Avenue between Third and Fourth Streets – the current location of the Revelstoke RCMP Detachment. The owner was Martin J. O’Brien, who served as Mayor of Revelstoke in 1902 and 1903 and who had been described as “a man of much enterprise and energy, sufficient to carry out well whatever he undertakes”. That may have been true but his business closed, mainly as result of Prohibition, which was in effect in British Columbia from 1917 to 1921.
(The Revelstoke Museum hosts lunchtime brown bag history talks. Check out revelstokemuseum.ca for details.)