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In parallel with other cities, towns and communities in Canada, commercial buildings have often accommodated an extensive range of businesses.

Saskatchewan’s older retail buildings reveal interesting histories of retail – these stories are often forgotten within a comparatively short period as the business sphere progresses.  

Whenever businesses close, the buildings once housing bustling centres of enterprise might become abandoned and perhaps never used again, allowing strollers wandering by to ponder on whatever happened behind those boarded-up windows and doors nailed shut in times past.

Happier are the buildings which are repurposed.

Speaking of happy, the Assiniboia Chamber of Commerce outside of town on Highway 2 North once accommodated Happy Farmer Equipment.

Casey Topola and Arthur Drewitz bought the old J.I. Case dealership in 1966.

Topola then bought out Drewitz and moved the business from Third Avenue West to the Chamber of Commerce’s present location along Highway 2 to Moose Jaw.

The Happy Farmer Equipment building, now the Chamber of Commerce, was built in 1975.  

Later, when J.I. Case and the International Harvester Company joined as one firm in 1985, the united corporation purchased Happy Farmer Equipment.

The area where The Source operated on 301 Centre Street was the place where Assiniboians were buying electronics since the 1970s.

Like many other retail outfits, The Source – once known as Radio Shack – lost sales to online purchases – forcing this corporation to close operations across Canada, including Assiniboia’s outlet.

Earlier, Telstar News Limited opened in the Frank Stein Building at 228 Centre Street in 1965, remaining there until 1970.

Earl King, who ran the business with his sister Helen Garven, wanted more space, so they shifted Telstar News across the street and into the former Waldheim building at 301 Centre Street.

A group of five local business men acquired the business a year later in 1971, with Dan Mierau running the shop.     

Mierau became the sole owner of Telstar in 1976 then changed the store into a Radio Shack outlet in the same year.

South of Shoppers Drug Mart and across from Southland Coop, Harold Henrikson opened the Assiniboia Turbo Service in 1974 on 436 Centre Street after taking over the site where the Lockwood Service Station had functioned long before.