Let’s do a throwback and check out the Marshall Smith & Co. store at the corner of Delta and Chisholm streets in Ladner.
It was one of the municipality’s go-to businesses for many supplies.
The store usually ran the biggest ads in The Delta Times newspaper during that time, advertising they had the best selection and prices.
A front page ad in the Dec. 31, 1907 edition, for example, noted “1908 finds us in our “New Store,” up-to-date in every respect - and with a stock of merchandise that is also up-to-date, and that compares very favorably with any city stock – and taken all round is being sold at considerably less money than stocks in the cities. We again solicit from the residents of the Delta Municipality a continued share of your business for 1908. OUR AIM WILL ALWAYS BE QUALITY OF GOODS, REASONABLE PRICES, ATTENTION TO BUSINESSES.”
The ad also stated the store would commence its clearance sale the following week and that the business needed $10,000 cash.
The general store, which would encompass two buildings, sold everything from boy’s fancy suits, window shades, shoes, rubber bathing caps, ladies neckwear and belts, underwear, hosiery to fresh groceries, such as boiled rabbit, mushroom catsup to Hungarian flour for $6.25 per barrel.
An earlier news article about the business noted it employed a large staff of clerks who kept in touch with the growing demands of Delta.
The store's newer building in 1909 became the Lanning, Fawcett and Wilson general store, while the second building would become the McNeely building.
A Delta Archives photo from the early 1900s showing the Marshall Smith store at the end of Delta Street as well as other businesses including MacKenzie Drygoods, Delta Meat Market, Delta Times newspaper, I. O. O. F. and Royal Bank building, John Reagh's Shoe Store, Calvert & Lewis, H. N. Rich office, City Bakery and Fisher's Drugstore
