Lacombe City Council passed a Bylaw, which officially designates the Flatiron Building as a Municipal Historic Resource under the Province of Alberta Historical Resources Act.

“The Flatiron Building is Lacombe’s signature historical treasure,” Mayor Grant Creasey said. “This designation ensures the building will remain a hallmark of our community for years to come. I want to thank the current owner of the Flatiron and the Heritage Resources Committee (HRC) for their diligent work towards preserving the legacy of this building.”

The Flatiron Building is one of only two triangular-shaped “flatiron” structures in Alberta (the other, known as Gibson Block, is in Edmonton and was built in 1913). It is the oldest known building of this type in Western Canada.

As such a recognizable part of Lacombe’s downtown for nearly 120 years, it has become a significant community landmark. The building is an early twentieth-century Edwardian Classical Revival style, three-storey triangular-shaped brick and sandstone building situated at a prominent corner location on a triangular block in downtown Lacombe.

Designed in the Beaux-Arts tradition of architecture, the building is an excellent example of the influence of the Edwardian era on Western Canadian architecture. The building is valued for its distinctive architectural style and design and its association with two financial institutions that played an essential role in the development of Lacombe: The Merchant’s Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal.

It was constructed in 1903-1904 by the Merchant’s Bank of Canada, the first bank in Lacombe, and it merged with the Bank of Montreal in 1922. The Bank of Montreal continued to occupy the building until 1967.

"The members of Lacombe's Heritage Resources Committee are overjoyed that the Flatiron has received designation from City Council as a Municipal Historic Resource,” HRC Chair Myles