Vintage Scenes: Greenwood on Postcards
BY: BG EDITOR
Greenwood, circa 1907
Photo by McRae Bros.
Jan 28, 2017 — GREENWOOD, BC (BG)
Among the many heritage photographs we enjoy using here in BeautifulGreenwood.com are the vintage images that were published as postcards. Many of these photos were taken by professional photographers who had studios, and sometimes publishing houses, in British Columbia. Some had shops in Greenwood itself.
A number of photographers who were actively working in Greenwood and the Boundary region are listed in historic registries such as the Photographic Directory of Camera Workers (1858-1900)[1]. Among them were Duncan McRae and William James Smith (Smith & McRae), William Jefferson Carpenter and George Edward Millar of Carpenter & Millar, F. D. Rice & Co., T. N. Hibben, E. J. Edwards, and Alfred Dashwood Worgan. All have interesting stories, and in the months ahead we will present some of them here. Today we share a little information on the McRae brothers and the firm, Smith & McRae.
In a serial presentation of biographies of B.C. photographers, author Ron Greene offered some interesting details on the McRae Brothers for Postview [2], the newsletter of the Vancouver Postcard Club:
"The McRae family came from Scotland, first to Montreal, then to Mooretown, Ontario. Father John McRae owned a woollen mill which he later turned into a grist mill. Four of his sons came to B. C.: Duncan Cunningham, John, James and Alex.
Duncan was a school teacher in the U. S. before coming to B. C. He first worked for the stationery firm of Wallace & Co. in Rossland, B. C. then moved to Greenwood where in association with William James Smith they opened Smith & McRae, a book, stationery, tobacco and wall-paper store in 1897.
In August 1898 it was announced that the Greenwood telephone office was to be in Smith & McRae's bookstore in Greenwood, and a later report added that they were agents for the Vernon & Nelson Telephone Co., and that the long-distance telephone was located in their store.
In mid-August 1899 it was reported that D.C. McRae had returned from a business trip to Spokane and that he was accompanied by his brother who was spending a few days in the city. A month later Smith & McRae were said to have purchased a lot in Phoenix and planned on opening a branch stationery store there. By October they were erecting a building on Dominion Avenue in Phoenix's lower town subdivision. Both John and James McRae, who had previously been engaged in trade in Idaho and Montana, arrived in Phoenix by the fall of 1899.
At the end of 1899 the firm bought a two story building on Copper Street from George McKague. In Phoenix the firm composed of the three McRae brothers and W.F. Smith became known as McRae Bros. & Smith with John and James being the resident partners. Both Duncan McRae and W.F. Smith continued to live in Greenwood and operate the Smith & McRae
business."
Greenwood-Phoenix, c. 1906
Notated photograph by Duncan C. McRae
The McRae Brothers and their partner Smith went on to produce an excellent line of Christmas cards with views of Phoenix. By 1906, W.F. Smith had sold has interests in all the operations, including the Greenwood branch. James McRae moved here to run the Greenwood shop. Around this time, McRae & Co. received a stock of their fancy new souvenir postal card packs, printed in seven colours in Germany, and featuring photographs of Boundary scenes.
By 1909, James had relocated to Prince Rupert, and the Greenwood branch was closed. By the following year the brothers had also left Phoenix, moving their entire operation to Prince Rupert.
To this day, vintage postcards of Greenwood and the surrounding mining camps bearing the McRae Bros. stamp, or simply "McRae", can be found on Ebay and other ephemera collector sites. The seven-colour German printed images are easy to recognize. Other Greenwood and Phoenix cards were printed as either black & white or colour collotypes or lithos. Some of these were printed by Valentine & Sons of Scotland, the original home of the McRae family. Valentine & Sons was eventually purchased by Hallmark Cards.
"Slag running into pots, each of 25 tons capacity at B.C. Copper Co.'s smelter, Greenwood, B.C."
Photo by McRae Bros.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Camera Workers: The British Columbia, Alaska & Yukon Photographic Directory, 1858-1950, Volume 1 (1858-1900)
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