DERRICK BUILDING

Firm: Rule Wynn and Rule

Address: 528 9 Avenue SW

Date of final plans: 1952

Status: demolished ca. 1983

The exact date of construction of the Derrick Building is uknown, though it was likely in the 1920s. After returning from the war, Lt Cdr Austin Henry Ford (1913–1981) purchased a pool hall and bowling alley equipment manufacturing company and renamed it Hayford Limited, a portmanteau of Ford and Haylock, after his wife Phyllis Haylock (1910–2006). The company operated out of an old building on 9th Avenue. In 1954, Ford sold his business to Brunswick and set about redeveloping his building into a modern office suited to oil companies. The redesign of his building was done by Rule Wynn and Rule in an austere modern style. Tenants of the new building included Dome Petroleum and the Great Plains Development Company.

Around 1956, Ford sold the Derrick Building and used the proceeds to build the new French Petroleum Building. In 1976 he built the Ford Tower next to French Petroleum (which was by then the Alpine Building).