Baitong Neon Sign - 1530 Water Street - Downtown Kelowna BC - October 16, 2009.

The Baitong Neon sign calls attention to its self on the second Floor of the Raymer Block Heritage Building.

The Raymer Block is a brick commercial building constructed in 1917 and located at 1530 Water Street in Kelowna's downtown area.

The Raymer Block is valued as representative of the brick commercial buildings in the downtown core, for its connection with earlier buildings on the site, and for its association with people and businesses that were important to the history of Kelowna.

Although the current building was constructed in 1917, its heritage value is directly linked to earlier buildings on the site that go back to the first commercial development in Kelowna and through them, to the significant carpenter and builder, Henry W. Raymer. Raymer came to Kelowna from Shoal Lake, Manitoba in 1892 and constructed many of the early buildings in Kelowna, including the First United Church. He became Kelowna's first Mayor on incorporation of the City in 1905.

The Raymer Block was rebuilt in 1917 by J.A. Bigger and G.E. Ward, with the well-known M.J. Curts acting as the designer. H.W. Raymer had died in April 1916 and so was not directly involved. This was the fourth building on the present site; the first three were erected by Henry Raymer: in 1893 (burned in 1903), 1903 (moved in 1909), and 1909 (burned in 1916).

The present building has a single storey on Bernard Avenue and two storeys at the rear, on Water Street. Parts of the 1909 building are said to have survived the 1916 fire and to have been incorporated in the new building (the brick wall on Water Street, part of 297 Bernard, and the two large entrances on Bernard Avenue).

The building also has value for its long connection with the general store of Thomas Lawson and George Rowcliffe, which opened here in 1899 and returned to the corner location after each rebuilding, and for accommodating a long-time locally-owned department store. Thomas Lawson retired to Victoria in 1913. Management of the business was taken over by George Meikle. In 1937 the name of the business was changed to George A. Meikle Ltd., and for the next thirty years Meikle's and Fumerton's competed as the town's two leading 'department' stores. Meikle's was sold to Field's Stores in 1969.

W.R. Trench had moved his drugstore, established in 1908, further up Bernard Avenue into the western portion of the Raymer Block in 1916, just in time for the second fire. He too returned after the rebuilding, and Trench's Drugs was there until about 1969. The building now houses Fusion Clothing (299), Kelowna Stationers (297), and Jacal International Boutique (289), continuing the general merchandising use that has predominated on the site since before the 1916 fire.

The building also has value for being representative of the brick commercial buildings that continued to be erected during the decade.

Source: City of Kelowna, Planning Department, File No. 6800-02

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Neon lighting is created by passing an electrical charge through a partial vacuum tube that contains a small amount of an inert gas, usually neon or argon. When neon gas alone is used, clear glass tubes give off the familiar red glow. Argon used alone provides a pale blue violet color. A variety of colors can be created by combining gases and by coating the inside of the glass tubes with one of several fluorescent-type materials, such as tungsten or silicate of calcium.

In the early 1900s George Claude of France found a way to conduct a consistent electric current through glass tubing by adding electrodes at both ends of the tubing. He patented the first neon lighting system in 1910, and his system became commercially available in the 1920s. Neon Products is generally credited with creating the first neon sign in Vancouver. Popular colors in the 1920s and 1930s were pinks and greens. These early signs often used neon tubing to "frame" a sign - like the Winters Hotel in Gastown (Abbott at Water). After World War II, and the shortage of sheet metal was over, sign designers were inspired with newfound freedom. Signs took on new complexity including movement of lights.

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