The Lost Series: Edmonton's Lost Boomtown Hotels - Part 1
By Lawrence Herzog
Herzog on Heritage | December 2, 2011 | Article 013
City of Edmonton Archives, EA-10-2764.
As Edmonton was born and grew with the fur trade, the Klondike gold rush, the arrival of the railways and the settlement of the West, thousands of newcomers poured in and needed places to stay. In the first dozen years of the 20th century, Edmonton’s population grew by nearly 50,000, generating enormous demand for hotels and rooming houses.
The earliest hotels, like Edmonton House and the Strathcona Hotel, were wood-frame buildings, constructed quickly from materials at hand. Those that were built between 1905 and 1910 were some of the new city’s very first brick buildings, designed and constructed to last and bring a little sophistication and style to the edge of the frontier.
A century later, nearly all of them are long gone. Here’s to remembering a few of the first ones.
Edmonton Hotel, 1876
Donald Ross was a Scottish-born prospector, coal miner, farmer and pioneer hotelier who arrived in Edmonton in 1872 and bought 70 acres of what then became known as Ross Flats – and is now called Rossdale. The following year, he established one of the very first residences outside the walls of Fort Edmonton, at the bottom of McDougall Hill at Rossdale Road.
Ross turned the second floor of his home into a dormitory in 1876, called it Edmonton House, and in so doing created the first hotel west of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. The hotel boasted the first billiard tables in the region, and the tables were frequently pressed into service as spare beds for latecomers who were charged 50 cents a night.
Business was so good that Ross and his wife Olive Blewett expanded the Edmonton Hotel three times in its first 25 years of operation. He died in 1915, the hotel was converted into a rooming house, and then it burned down in 1925. Olive lived to be 82, and died in 1932. Today a park bench and replica fireplace mark the site of the Edmonton Hotel.
Yale Hotel, 1902
With a 450-seat beverage parlour, complete with spittoons and brass rails, two banquet rooms for live entertainment, and more than 40 well-appointed rooms, the Yale Hotel was a big hit in boomtime Edmonton when it opened in 1902. The brick-clad hotel, at 10015 Jasper Avenue, was where Governor General Earl Grey stayed in the fall of 1907 when he visited to lay the cornerstone for the Alberta Legislature Buildings.
From the beginning, the comfortable and economical Yale was popular with prospectors, miners, ranchers and farmers. In 1910, guests paid $2 per room, or $2.50 for a room with a bath, and 35 cents for meals.
When the adjacent Royal Bank building was demolished in 1966, a painted sign was revealed, advertising the hotel and its proprietor Robert E. McDonald, who acquired the hotel in 1910. But the ravages of time had worn off the letter "Y," and so it read "ALE HOTEL." Truth in advertising!
Edmonton hotelier Eugene Pechet acquired the Yale in 1950 and launched an extensive renovation the next year, updating the interior and removing the brass rails and spittoons. But loyal long-time customers kept coming, as many had been doing for more than 50 years, sitting at the same seats and chatting with the same friends. The Yale closed its doors on June 7, 1967, and fell to the wrecker's ball later that year.
Windsor / Hotel Selkirk, 1903
This 40-room hotel at the southwest corner of Jasper Avenue and 101st Street formally opened as the Windsor on February 9, 1903. Robert McDonald, who started working in Edmonton’s hotel business after he arrived in 1902, bought the Yale in 1910, and then the Windsor in 1911, along with the adjacent Windsor Block. Media reports said he paid $500,000 for both buildings.
McDonald expanded and renovated the property to 100 guest rooms, renamed it the Hotel Selkirk and reopened it on November 10, 1913. For the next 50 years, the three-storey hotel was one of Edmonton’s most popular meeting places, with its central location, comfortable pub and classy basement restaurant, Johnson's Café.
The café was started in 1920 by Constantinos Yeanitchous (by some accounts Giianitsiis), a Greek immigrant who went by the name Con Johnson. It wasn't long before "meet me under the clock at Johnson's" became a popular phrase, and everyone in the city knew the spot.
For a time, the hotel’s Mahogany Room claimed the title of North America’s longest bar. It was renowned for its fine wines, liquors and cigars, and reflected McDonald’s exquisite taste for quality.
The well-loved landmark hotel was severely damaged by fire on December 18, 1962, and was subsequently demolished the following September to make way for the Royal Bank of Canada tower. A replica of the Selkirk was built from the original blueprints and stands in Fort Edmonton Park.
Alberta Hotel, 1903
Fred Jackson and Edmund Del Grierson commissioned architect James Edward Wize to design them a pressed brick and sandstone hotel overlooking the river valley where Canada Place now stands on Jasper Avenue at 98 Street. Before the hotel, the spot was home to Luke Kelly’s saloon and billiard hall beginning in 1883, and was then converted for use as a hotel in 1893.
Wize devised a Victorian Romanesque-style building with a conical 75-foot-high corner tower, round and segmentally arched windows and a rusticated base, all of which gave it a castle-like appearance. When it opened in 1903, the Alberta Hotel boasted the first elevator in the city and shower baths. Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier stayed at the hotel when he visited Edmonton in 1905 to mark Alberta’s entry into Confederation.
Riding the publicity from his new hotel and his reputation, Grierson was elected alderman in 1904. Grierson Hill bears his name.
The Alberta Hotel was dismantled and demolished in 1984. Parts of the historic building were salvaged, including the west- and south-facing sandstone and brick facades, crowning white cupola, the elegant bar room interior, exterior signs, and the original elevator. Some of the elements have been used in a replica building just east of the original site.
Next time: The second wave of Edmonton’s early 20th century hotels.
Photos:
Yale Hotel, 1912. Glenbow Archives, NC-6-487
Hotel Selkirk, 1940. City of Edmonton Archives, EA-275-1194
Alberta Hotel, 1928. Glenbow Archives, NC-6-12352
© 2011 Lawrence Herzog, All Rights Reserved.
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