Haskayne Mercantile Block

Turpin, Tweed & Stewart, and Hewitt Blocks

Designed by the architect William T. Williams in the Edwardian commercial style, these handsome red brick buildings celebrated Medicine Hat’s booming early twentieth-century economy. Constructed in three stages, these buildings are unified by their classic design, rhythmic patterns, and continuous cornice.

Young prairie towns typically had an assortment of one and two-story wooden structures hastily erected on twenty-five-foot-wide commercial lots. In prosperous times these were demolished to make way for substantial brick and stone buildings. The new buildings gave a pleasing rhythm, to the street as they incorporated the twenty-five-foot standard. With retail stores on the ground floor and offices or residential apartments above, commercial buildings were a vital part of any downtown.