Since 1898, the Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal has been at the heart of the community in a custom-built office on 4th Street. In the not-too-distant future, however, the historic building could become the home of something new.
While the building is for sale, the Ashcroft-Cache Creek Journal's coverage isn’t going anywhere. The paper will still be bringing readers the latest on what’s happening in Ashcroft, cache Creek, and the surrounding area, but from a local office that is more suited to a modern news organization. With the evolution of the newspaper industry, the Journal simply doesn’t need the amount of space that the historic building offers.
Founded in May 1895 as the B.C. Mining Journal, the paper originally operated out of a shed on Railway Avenue. However, in 1898 a new building began to rise on a plot of land on 4th Street opposite the Ashcroft Hotel, and in 1899 the paper moved headquarters and changed its name to the Ashcroft Journal.
The two-storey building has been a feature of Ashcroft ever since. The ground floor held the offices and the printing press, which was used not only to print the paper but to produce posters to advertise local events. A sturdy safe pictured in the editor's office around 1912 is still in the building.
During the First World War the second floor was used to store items donated to the Red Cross, which were then distributed to soldiers fighting overseas; it also served as Ashcroft's first library.
In 1935 R.D. Cumming — who had purchased the Journal, and become its editor, in 1912 — created the first Ashcroft Museum on the Journal building's second floor, displaying items he had been collecting since 1905. After the Village of Ashcroft incorporated in 1952, the items were donated to the town, and starting in 1958 were displayed in a purpose-built museum building on Railway Avenue (now part of the fire hall) before being moved to the current Ashcroft Museum building in 1982.
The second floor of the building was turned into a two-bedroom suite, and various Journal editors continued to use it as accommodation until the early 1990s. A one-storey addition was added to the original building in the mid-1960s.
The original building survived the Great Fire of July 1916, which started across the street in the Ashcroft Hotel. It also survived several subsequent fires which destroyed buildings around it — including the second Ashcroft Hotel — but left the Journal unscathed.
The Journal building is home to B.C.'s oldest continuously-published weekly newspaper, and is one of the oldest buildings in the province still housing the business for which it was originally built. While changes are coming to the building, the Journal will still be here, a proud part of the town and the area's history for more than 129 years.
Kevin Scharfenberg of EXP Realty is the listing agent. For more information, call (250) 457-1795, email kevin@tnrdhomes.com, or visit www.tnrdhomes.com.
