Declared “the smallest modern two-storey building on Earth” in 1947 by Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, the “Mighty” Mite block was built in 1913, with its second floor only accessible by an outside ladder. Too fragile to be moved, it was demolished in 1960. Story in comments
The Mite Block was an accident of civic planning, the result of a survey into expanding the street that ended up reducing the size of the property to the equivalent of a parking stall. Nevertheless, owner Del Grierson went ahead and built the Mite Block, initially as a candy store; it would later serve as a real estate office, a jewelry store, and finally as the office of Imperial Taxi. The second floor became a dormitory for off-shift drivers, accessible by a tiny staircase that replaced the exterior ladder.
The building was sold off for $3,000 in 1960, and previous owner Mr George Andrew Collins almost immediately regretted it: ““I couldn’t sleep last night,” he said. “This morning I offered to take the building back. I said to the man, ‘do you want to make $200 if you’ll tear up the agreement?’ He wouldn’t go for it.”
The man who bought it was a Mr Ben Birbenbaum, owner of Ben’s Bargain Store next door who intended to use the space to expand his own business: “Asked about the historical value of the building, he said Edmontonians should be glad to see if go because “it isn’t good for anything, and it doesn’t look good on Jasper Avenue.’”
The mayor of Edmonton at the time also weighed in, describing it as “…one of the many old structures on Jasper Ave. that I hope will be cleared out before many years… It’s a hangover from our village days”.
The last attempt to save the building came from farmer Earl Danard who wanted to add the Mite Block to his collection of pioneer structures and artifacts. His plan was to wrap the building in a wood frame, tip it on its side and load it onto a truck. But it was then discovered that the building was actually made of terracotta bricks, and that it crumbled with every slight movement. Instead, he stripped it of its fixtures to be used in a replica of the building at his “Great Northwest Pioneer Village”. Eventually the city would take over his collection and move it to Fort Edmonton Park, but apparently even the replica was too fragile to be saved (alternatively, at least one newspaper article suggested this structure was in fact the original Mite Block and not a replica).
Viscount1881 says
Google streetview. The current building there is the Shaw Conference Centre, but it was built decades after the Mite Block was torn down.
Here’s a twitter conversation from which the following information comes from. It includes a bunch of newspaper clippings and images of the Mite Block, including this one from 1957 that shows just how tiny the building was. If you can’t/won’t look at the twitter convo, here’s a summary:
The Mite Block was an accident of civic planning, the result of a survey into expanding the street that ended up reducing the size of the property to the equivalent of a parking stall. Nevertheless, owner Del Grierson went ahead and built the Mite Block, initially as a candy store; it would later serve as a real estate office, a jewelry store, and finally as the office of Imperial Taxi. The second floor became a dormitory for off-shift drivers, accessible by a tiny staircase that replaced the exterior ladder.
The building was sold off for $3,000 in 1960, and previous owner Mr George Andrew Collins almost immediately regretted it: ““I couldn’t sleep last night,” he said. “This morning I offered to take the building back. I said to the man, ‘do you want to make $200 if you’ll tear up the agreement?’ He wouldn’t go for it.”
The man who bought it was a Mr Ben Birbenbaum, owner of Ben’s Bargain Store next door who intended to use the space to expand his own business: “Asked about the historical value of the building, he said Edmontonians should be glad to see if go because “it isn’t good for anything, and it doesn’t look good on Jasper Avenue.’”
The mayor of Edmonton at the time also weighed in, describing it as “…one of the many old structures on Jasper Ave. that I hope will be cleared out before many years… It’s a hangover from our village days”.
The last attempt to save the building came from farmer Earl Danard who wanted to add the Mite Block to his collection of pioneer structures and artifacts. His plan was to wrap the building in a wood frame, tip it on its side and load it onto a truck. But it was then discovered that the building was actually made of terracotta bricks, and that it crumbled with every slight movement. Instead, he stripped it of its fixtures to be used in a replica of the building at his “Great Northwest Pioneer Village”. Eventually the city would take over his collection and move it to Fort Edmonton Park, but apparently even the replica was too fragile to be saved (alternatively, at least one newspaper article suggested this structure was in fact the original Mite Block and not a replica).
monsieurvampy says
digs out my pitchfork
DJ-Ascii says
THE SMAWLEST
twobit211 says
built the same year as the sam kee building in vancouver
leg_hair_lover says
The first tiny house