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George Keyes' Central Boot and Shoe Store - 1880-1897
The original structure that would house George Keyes' store, which would subsequently launch Keyes Block's commercial legacy, would come into fruition in 1880 through a different set of hands - Lot 10, Section D would come into the possession of a Mr. William Brundige on March 2nd, 1873, after purchasing the land from William and Barbara Neelin for $1,200[1] (roughly $33,064 CAD as of April 2021).
George Keyes himself did not arrive at the property until his marriage to William Brundige's daughter, Lucy. He would go on to open his seminal store in 1893 and would very quickly establish himself as a premier shoe salesman; with the introduction of machine-manufactured shoe factories in Ontario at the beginning of the 1890s, which previously only existed in Quebec, Keyes' store was an intermediary between the newly modernized and enlarged boot & shoe industry and the public[2]. By 1896, he hosted 950 pairs of shoes for sale, proclaiming it to be "the largest stock of boots and shoes ever shown...in Carleton Place" and dubbing himself "Keyes, the Shoe Man." [3] From the outset, Keyes represented a wave in the sea change that was moving through Ontario's shoe production industry, where factories were pushing aside independent shoe makers.
While his products were au courant, the architecture of his store was becoming old-fashioned - the original wooden structure was essentially a detached home with a storefront pasted in front of its façade, an earlier iteration of the mixed residential-commercial family unit that was slowly being threatened by the growing presence of large, multi-block department stores that were already pushing small-scale retailers into bankruptcy across the nation by the time Keyes' store opened[4]. The storefront's simplistic façade with wooden frieze and early use of plate-glass windows bears the only source of continuity between itself and its successor. Remarkably, the mixed-use format of George Keyes' store would survive well into the 21st century. Its material foundations, however, wouldn't fare nearly as well...
FIRE!
At around 3 o'clock in the early morning of December 7th, 1897, a flame began to flicker in Mr. William Salter's vacated shop near the Queen's Hotel. Soon after, it would spread to the rest of Bridge Street and burn continually until being contained roughly three hours later, leaving in its wake "six business places reduced to ashes", which included the Keyes' Central Boot & Shoe Store. Listed as one of "the Losers" in that morning's Carleton Place Herald issue, George Keyes lost a total of $8,200 dollars in stock and building damage, one of the heaviest deficits reported in the whole debacle - he had just acquired $2,000 worth of boots and shoes for the upcoming Christmas season to add to his twelve years' worth of savings invested in his stock[5][6].
Nonetheless, he managed to keep a lofty spirit, continuing to sell his remaining stock at reduced prices in rented spaces from other generous storeowners while his new store was coming into fruition...