In the course of our daily reporting, we often uncover unusual projects, places, or connections that don't make the final cut. Instead of keeping it to ourselves, we're pleased to share our weekly Architrivia.

In the shadow of the Fox Towers is an unassuming but historically significant four-and-a-half-storey brick warehouse and office building along 105 Street NW. Built in 1914 as a cigar factory, the H.V. Shaw Building was located within Edmonton's pre-war warehouse district, and remains one of the city's most enduring reminders of its manufacturing past. 

The H.V. Shaw Building in modern times, image by Flickr user Heidi G via Creative Commons

Cigar maker H.V. Shaw operated the facility and produced Major Reno and La Palma Cigars, two notable brands that residents of the Prairie provinces were particularly fond of during the First World War. Just five years later, the economic climate and the growing popularity of cigarettes shuttered the business. Constructed with reinforced concrete and clad in brick, the building is an early example of a purpose-built industrial structure. It was also only the second fireproof warehouse in Edmonton and one of the city's only examples of the Chicago School style of architecture.

H.V. Shaw Building in 1940, image via City of Edmonton Archives EA-275-1066

Designed by architects Magoon and MacDonald, the building features Chicago windows, vertical lines, and precast concrete on the parapet that are indicative of the style that developed at the turn of the 20th century. The checkerboard brick and stone patterns at the top of the building, along with its inset garnished entryway, makes the warehouse among the most decorative in the city. Though the bottom two levels have been covered by a neighbouring glass-sheathed micro-brewery, passersby can still discern the surviving painted wall of advertising on the south elevation.