Here is the latest newsletter installment of an image and quote from the museum’s award-winning book Watershed Moments – A Pictorial History of Courtenay and District.

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Photo credit: The biggest and best dance floor in British Columbia: the Royston Imperial Pavilion, 1931. Charles Sillence photograph. Page 146-147.

Photo caption: “From 1923 to 1940, the steady stream of traffic winding its way south from Courtenay on a Saturday night was heading for the Royston Imperial Pavilion, the largest, and reputedly the best, dance floor in British Columbia…In July 1940, as the band was setting up, a short in the wiring caused a fire that swept through the building, engulfing it completely in ten minutes. Paper decorations and greenery fuelled the blaze.” Page 145.