ESTEVAN - A & A Jewellery in Estevan was among the businesses hit hard by the flooding brought on by a severe thunderstorm in late August.
The water damaged the business' basement, and while the long-time company remained open after all of the water, owner Laurel Buck said there was significant losses.
While hauling things away from the basement, she found signatures and writings dating back to 1925 on the basement's wall. Buck said the oldest name was a Nellie Phillips.
"Somebody said she worked at McCready's Hardware Store, but I don't know if that was in this building or another building," said Buck.
Other names were on the wall, and she believes the last one was from 1957 – the same year Estevan became a city.
She's not sure why people were writing their names on the wall in the past. She thought Phillips was there because it was from the year the building was constructed.
"I thought maybe it was something interesting to do, but I don't know if it's people who worked in the building and the owners and staff that have put their names up there, but it's really piqued my interest into the history of the building," said Buck.
She had previously found a message that said the building was "born" in 1925 and added onto in 1960. During recent ceiling work, Buck said they could see where the old building was and where old bricks were removed.
In some cases, she's not sure of the language of the writing.
Buck said she is interested in finding out which businesses have occupied A & A's present home in the past.
"I'd like to do a plaque and put it out front for the 100th year," said Buck.
"I think there's so much history downtown that maybe this will start something, with the new look downtown, and we can have our plaques on our walls of how old our buildings are and what businesses have been in here before," she added later. "After Christmas, I'm hoping, when I have more time, to just delve into the history and the records."
If anybody knows knows anything about the building's history, Buck said she would love to hear it.
She knows there was a butcher shop in there at one time because there were troughs in the basement and large hooks in the ceiling.
The restorations work in the basement wrapped up about two weeks ago. The business lost about $30,000 in inventory and non-inventory items, such as a ring buffer and a ring stretcher, and there are other things lost that Buck says they likely won't notice until later. But the support from the community has been great, and they're looking forward to the completion of this year's work for the downtown revitalization project and the upcoming Christmas shopping season.
