While no longer standing as a reminder of Black Diamond’s boom years, Diamond Hardware and Lucy’s Variety Shoppe on Centre Avenue remain alive only in print.
Lloyd Spicer, who owned both buildings on 124 Centre Avenue before having them torn down and replaced with Black Diamond Pharmasave, recalls the buildings as pretty bare bones.
“There was no insulation in the building,” he said of the old hardware store. “We had an old floor furnace and the big windows in the front, which the sun did most of the work.”
When Spicer bought Diamond Hardware in 1995, it was new territory.
“I had no experience so I learned quickly,” he said.
In those days, Black Diamond was a much quieter place, recalls Spicer.
“Black Diamond wasn’t near as busy as it is today. There was very little traffic and the customers were pretty much all local.”
Diamond Hardware had a bit of competition at the time, with Home Hardware and a lumberyard and hardware store in neighbouring Turner Valley.
But it was the arrival of Walmart and Canadian Tire in Okotoks when business began to suffer.
Spicer rented the Centre Avenue buildings out before tearing them down in the early 2000s.
“You couldn’t save the buildings,” he said. “The buildings had served their purpose and there was basically nothing left to save.”
Both served as a hub in the community for almost 60 years.
It began with brothers Cliff and Gordon Bray, who moved to Black Diamond and built Diamond Hardware in 1946.
According to In the Light of the Flares history book, Cliff had farmed in the Foothills for 18 years before starting Diamond Hardware with Gordon.
The Brays had a wooden building moved from Royalites adjacent to the hardware store to serve as a storage shed.
Many small shacks were purchased and removed from foundations in neighbouring communities, as the oil and gas reserves dried up, to meet the growing commercial businesses during the boom years of the 1940s and 1950s. False fronts were added to fit the streetscape style of the time.
The Brays operated Diamond Hardware until the big fire of 1949. Gordon sold his share to Cliff, who continued the business until his retirement in 1964, according to In the Light of the Flares. Cliff also served for several years as village councillor.
Diamond Hardware was purchased by Bill Stuart, who initially moved to Turner Valley in 1930 and worked various jobs, including in Vancouver, before returning to Turner Valley in 1951 to go into partnership with Roy Farries to form Diamond Construction.
In 1964, Farries bought him out and Stuart purchased Diamond Hardware from Bray and operated it with his wife and son-in-law, the history book states.
It was around that time that Diamond Hardware’s storage shed was converted to a novelty and toy shop.
Lucy Hussey, a long-time employee of Diamond Hardware, operated Lucy’s Variety Shoppe for eight years.
Hussey and her husband Bill had arrived in Black Diamond in 1946. Bill was a native of Ontario and Hussey was born and raised in Saskatchewan.
Bill was promised a job and apartment in Black Diamond, but neither materialized when the couple arrived, the book states.
They got a two room apartment at the Welcome Inn and Bill found himself working various odd jobs across Alberta before returning to Black Diamond where he bought a drilling rig and went into business for himself while Lucy worked for Bray at Diamond Hardware for 17 years.
Stuart took over Diamond Hardware in 1964 and when Lucy’s husband passed away the following year she started Lucy’s Variety Shoppe.
Stuart operated Diamond Hardware until 1976 before selling it to Mike and Phyllis Zuk and when Lucy sold her business, it became a saddle shop for many years.
Today, 124 Centre Avenue now serves as Black Diamond Pharmasave, owned and operated by Spicer’s son Jason and his wife Deirdre.
