"Your Home on the Range:" The Commercial Hotel at Maple Creek

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Co-authored by Royce E. W. Pettyjohn, former Coordinator of Maple Creek's Main Street Program, now Park Manager at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park

Maple Creek's oldest continually operated business, the Commercial Hotel, is truly a community treasure. Thanks to a group of new immigrants from the Philippines, this heritage hotel was recently restored to its former glory. Today's visitors can still get a sense of the hotel’s rich history as a result of the atmosphere and furnishings that have been preserved in the hotel lobby.

Marcelo Del Barrio, Jayson Catalasan, Ronald Del Barrio, and Noy Lim, hold a painting of the original hotel built in 1884/1885. Source

UPDATE: The Commercial Hotel closed in April 2017 and put up for sale. Click here for story.

  
Hotel on the Ranching Frontier

The original hotel c. 1885. Submitted photo.

Rasin sold the Commercial Hotel to Edward Fearon on August 18, 1890; Lot #4 was sold to James Baird on March 2, 1898. Fearon, who was elected to the Territorial Assembly in November of 1894, sold the hotel to John Henry Fleming on Christmas Eve 1896. A little over two years later, Fleming also acquired Lot #4 from Baird. 

Fleming was an American cowboy who had worked as a foreman on the Oxarart Ranch upon coming to Canada. He later had ranching interests in the Skull Creek area, was a partner in the Williamson & Fleming Store at Maple Creek in 1903 (now the Salvation Army Thrift Store). Canada’s 1901 census shows Fleming, age 36, living in the Commercial Hotel with his wife Mary and their two children. Hotel staff in 1901 consisted of two bartenders and four chambermaids. 

The Commercial Hotel’s only competition in Maple Creek during the 1880s and 1890s was the International Hotel, built by J. J. English in 1883 on the east corner of Jasper Street and Pacific Avenue (destroyed by fire in August 1896). Between 1902 and 1904, however, the Cypress Hotel, the Jasper Hotel and the Maple Leaf Hotel had all been constructed and the aging Commercial Hotel was no longer the establishment of choice in town. In A.M. Merton 1904 booklet called The New West Era he refers to the Commercial Hotel as a “dollar house” under the management of the Henderson-Downer system (which owned the Cypress Hotel). 

According to the Maple Creek News editor W.J. Redmond, it was around this time that Fleming decided to once again “make the Commercial the best hotel in town.” Around 1906 the original wooden Commercial Hotel structure was moved back on the lot and a large three-storey brick addition was constructed on the front of the hotel. This addition is represented today by the beverage room and everything above it. The location where the original wooden building was attached to the new brick addition is still visible at the back of the hotel.

The 1906 section of the Commercial Hotel. Submitted photo.

In 1910, Fleming sold the Commercial Hotel to Norman Robson., who immediately started to work on a second expansion. His addition to the east encroached onto Lot #4 and is represented today by the current lobby, dining room and everything above them. The new addition opened on August 30^th, 1911. The next day, the Maple Creek News provided the following account: 

"The new addition of the Commercial Hotel was put into commission yesterday and Maple Creekites have good reason to be proud of the Pacific Avenue hostelry. The ground floor is taken up by the rotunda and dining room. Both rooms are spacious, finished in golden oak, well lighted, and modern in every particular. New mission furniture in the dining room adds greatly to the attractiveness. The rotunda and the bar room have tile floors. Upstairs the new bedrooms have the advantages gained by plumbing and eight of them have baths in connection. The house now has 52 rooms and is steam heated throughout. The old rotunda is being overhauled and will be utilized for a pool and billiard room. The owner, Mr. N. L. Robson is to be congratulated upon the appearance of the Commercial, and it is more than likely that his efforts to keep the hotel up to the requirements of a growing town will be appreciated by the public."

The 1911 Canada census shows Norman Robson, age 30, living in the hotel, along with his wife Mable and six staff members. Four of the young women on the hotel staff worked in the dining room. Perhaps Lela, Miriam, Katie, and Lizzie served the splendid Christmas dinner in the hotel’s new dining room that year. The menu offered stewed oysters, shrimp patties, salmon, fillet of sole, ham with champagne sauce, duck, lamb, chicken, beef, turkey, goose, and every possible side dish. Countless desserts were served at the end of this sumptuous holiday feast that was topped off with port & sherry.

Unfortunately, the “new mission furniture in the dining room” referenced by the Maple Creek News did not survive to furnish today’s Commercial Hotel’s. However, the Commercial Hotel’s beautiful lobby furniture would have originally been in the circa 1885 wooden hotel structure. It would have then been reused in the lobby of the 1906 brick addition, and then again in the 1911 lobby where it remains to this day. The 1911 marble tile floor has also survived with very little loss over the course of the last 103 years.

On December 31, 1912, just over a year after opening the new addition, Robson sold the hotel to William McRoberts, Jeremiah McRoberts, Thomas Battell & William Battell, all from Moose Jaw. It appears that William McRoberts came to Maple Creek to oversee the consortium’s interests, while Jeremiah McRoberts went on to own and operate the Royal Hotel at Weyburn. The McRoberts brothers bought out both of the Battell brothers’ interests in the Commercial Hotel by September of 1917. 

Weathering Hard Times

It was during this time that Prohibition started in Saskatchewan. Click here to see blog post. This meant hard times for the hotel business. On June 10, 1919 Sophia Richardson & James Wilson bought the Commercial Hotel. After a struggle to keep the hotel afloat, Wilson lost his interest to the Land Securities Company of Canada Ltd. on March 30^, 1921. Nine months later, his partner Sophia bought out his interests from the security company. Unfortunately Sophia Richardson lost the Commercial Hotel to the Bank of Montreal on March 9, 1927. 

The former billiards room/beverage room was converted to house the bank's Maple Creek operations. The beer cooler currently used in the Commercial Hotel beverage room is said to have been the bank vault. The Bank of Montreal moved out of the Commercial Hotel in 1932, although the bank continued to hold the title to the hotel until 1945. This stands to reason, as this period spans the Great Depression and the Second World War years. Matt Fleming operated the Commercial Hotel between 1927 and 1945. It was Fleming who adopted the hotel's motto, "Your Home on the Range," around 1935.

Fire plan c. 1930 shows the hotel with all its original sections. Submitted image.

In the spring of 1940 the original section of the Commercial Hotel was torn down. Maple Creek News editor W. J. Redmond lamented the loss in a May editorial. It appears that by 1940 the original section of the hotel had fallen into disuse. Redmond wrote that “the old original log building, tucked away behind, has been gathering cobwebs and paying taxes to the Town without doing anything to justify its existence.” He stated that although “the accommodation didn’t amount to much, judged by present standards, [it] was O.K. in the days when men wore whiskers and drank their whiskey straight.”

The Commercial Hotel went through several owners between 1945 and the early 1970s. These owners included John “Scotty” MacLaren (1945); Hazen Bonser (1945 to 1947); Frederick, William and Alvin Ehnis (1947 to 1956); and Louis Liepert (1956 to 1973). Sometime during the 1960s additional hotel rooms were built in the original dining room space.

On July 31, 1973, Bent Sorensen bought the Commercial Hotel and embarked on a major renovation project. The dining room on the main floor was reintroduced by removing the hotel rooms that had been built in the space. The hotel’s street appearance was updated, and the rooms on the second floor were modernized so that they all had baths. The official opening of the newly renovated Commercial Hotel occurred on January 2, 1976, with Maple Creek’s Mayor Harrigan cutting the ribbon in the presence of several dignitaries. 

The modernization of the second floor rooms obliterated virtually all of the circa 1906 and 1911 features from that area of the building. However, the 1906 and 1911 doors, baseboards, mouldings, trim and burlap wainscoting on the third floor of the hotel all managed to survive.

After hotel ownership changed a few more times, Sam and Darlene Boychuck bought the Commercial Hotel in 1986. The Boychucks did an admirable job of ensuring that the heritage character of the old hotel remained intact. During the Town of Maple Creek’s Centennial of Incorporation celebrations in 2003, the significance of the Commercial Hotel to the history of the community was officially recognized on one the town’s commemorative centennial coins. The Boychucks have the distinction of being the longest owners of the hotel in its 120 year history. After 20 years, the couple sold the Commercial Hotel to Young Han Shin in 2006. The hotel was then sold to Chung Lee. 

Flood of 2010 and Aftermath

2010 flood; Commercial Hotel at upper right. Source

 
Lee continued to preserve the heritage features of the building; however he had the misfortune of owning the hotel at the time of the disastrous flood of 2010. The flood caused extensive damage to the lower levels of the hotel, forcing it to close for the first time in its long history. Lee struggled to recoup his losses and reopen the hotel, without success.

At the end of 2012, Lee sold the Commercial Hotel to a group of Filipino investors who had recently immigrated to Canada, settling in Maple Creek. The seven stakeholders – Noy and Marchelle Lim, Jayson and Alneena Catalasan and Agnes, Marcelo and Ronald Del Barrio – formed Licadel Hotel Group Ltd. and made big plans for the hotel. They began a rehabilitation of the century-plus heritage landmark. 

Noy Lim, a classically trained chef, told the Maple Creek News that the restoration of the hotel is a way for them to give back and thank the community for welcoming them as newcomers. “When we

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first arrived here in Maple Creek, the town really welcomed us with huge smiles and embraced us,” he said. “So it's not always that you're on the receiving end. You have to give something.”

The hotel had sat vacant for two years after the 2012 flood filled the basement and main floor with water. The Filipino group began by cleaning the entire building, stripping carpet and some walls. They then embarked on a complete upgrade of the hotel in an effort to bring it up to modern standards, while at the same time maintaining the integrity of its history. “We'll try to make it look as much like a Western-Victorian hotel as possible – not fancy, but like you're travelling back in time when you walk into the hotel,” Lim explained.

 For SWTV news story video (December 17, 2012), click here

The Town of Maple Creek designated the Commercial Hotel as a Municipal Heritage Property on February 26, 2013. Since then, the Maple Creek Main Street program and the Saskatchewan Heritage Foundation have assisted the Filipino investors in their efforts to restore the Commercial Hotel. 

Noy Lim and crew reviewing plans, March 2013. Source.

In the spring of 2013, the Maple Creek News reported that labourers were laying bricks along the building's exterior facade. Original bricks removed during repairs to the back of the hotel were reused on the front facade. “It made us quite happy,” said Lim. “The bricks are in quite good condition, so all we have to do is clean up the paint on the bricks to bring out the colour of the bricks again.” The biggest surprise was the discovery by construction workers of windows in the north wall of the bar which had been covered for 30 years. "The windows were the biggest surprise a few months ago," said Lim.

For SWTV news story video (July 6, 2013), click here

Reopened for Business

 

A rustic, saloon-style bar at the Commercial Hotel opened in the summer of 2013; the hotel itself reopened in December of that that year. In February 2014, the Licadel stakeholders were presented with Maple Creek’s Business of the Year award, as well as the award for excellence in heritage conservation. 

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“Your Home on the Range” for more than 130 years, the newly renovated Commercial Hotel now had 14 guest rooms (standard, superior, deluxe, and honeymoon suite), complete with Wi-Fi and continental breakfast. The dining room, which seated 50, featured specialty international cuisine prepared by Chef Noy Lim.

Noy Lim with Premier Brad Wall, October 2013. Source

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said that Lim and his partners in the Commercial Hotel are close friends of the whole province. After the flood of 2010, the Premier noted, everyone was convinced that it was closed for good. Licadel's team of seven, doing a lot of the work with their own hands, brought the hotel back to its former glory. “The Commercial Hotel takes you back to that era,” said Wall. “It’s a special place, a very special place.” 

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c. Joan Champ, 2014

 

Tragedy in Blaine Lake: The Commercial Hotel

The Commercial Hotel in Blaine Lake, 1919.  Nicholas F. Zbitnoff photo.  Image source

In November 1912, a year and a half after Blaine Lake voted to go “dry,” three men died of alcohol poisoning as a result of drinking wood alcohol. The men were railway workers from out of town. It was a Saturday night, and since Blaine Lake was a dry town, they went to the local drug store looking for an alcohol-based substitute. The workers told the druggist that they intended to use the alcohol to rub down their horses. According to the Shellbrook Chronicle, “None survived the resulting consequences. Two died in the livery barn and another was found in a granary a few miles away on the farm of Silas Jones, having died trying to cool his throat and stomach with a mouthful of grain.” This tragic incident led to the end of Blaine Lake’s self-imposed prohibition. When it was put to a vote in the village on December 8, 1913, the decision to go “wet”was unanimous. 

Keefer Pollard (left) in front of his livery stable, c 1912. Source: Bridging the Years; Era of Blaine Lake and District, 1984 

Keefer Pollard

The livery barn where two of the three men died was owned by Keefer Pollard. He had come West in 1902 from Ontario with his parents and 12 brothers and sisters. All the Pollard men were trained in carpentry, and had built railway stations for the CPR and the CNR in some of the larger centres. Pollard sold his farm and moved into Blaine Lake in 1911 – the year the village went dry.  His first project was to build the village's first livery stable. His second project was the Commercial Hotel. When Blaine Lake voted to go wet in 1913, Pollard already had the hotel well under construction. He sold it to A. W. (Willis) Armstrong prior to its completion in 1914. The whole province went dry in 1915, and once more liquor for the purpose of intoxication could not be purchased in Blaine Lake.

Nicholas F. Zbitnoff photo. Image source

In 1953, Walter and Julia Krewniak bought the Commercial Hotel. They came to Blaine Lake in 1930 from the Ukraine. Julia’s brother, Stanley Bereziak, came to live with them after the Second World War, and worked as the hotel bartender. While living in the Ukraine with his wife and two young daughters, Stanley was captured by the Nazis and sent to a German prisoner-of-war camp where he was held for six years. Shortly after his admission to the PoW camp, Stanley ’s wife gave birth to a daughter, Helen, in their home village of Stratyn in Western Ukraine. About two years later, his wife died, and the three girls had to fend for themselves. Read full story here

Helen Bereziak, 1967.
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In October 1967, Stanley’s daughter Helen came to live with her father in Blaine Lake. From an early age, Helen had worked as a field labourer on the communal farms in the Soviet-annexed Ukraine. She worked at the Commercial Hotel, and married Jack Popoff in 1973. Helen eventually became the owner of the hotel through her family connections. Even after it stopped operating sometime in the 1990s, Helen continued to live in the large hotel building. 

Commercial Hotel in 2005. Joan Champ photo

Commercial Hotel in 2006. Joan Champ photo

Saskatchewan Architectural Heritage Society - 3D Model Saskatchewan
© Joan Champ 2011

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Harris Hotels: Ruby Rush and More

The Commercial Hotel at Harris, c. 1910.  From Harris: Heritage to Homage (1982)

In 1910, three of the seven Gordon brothers bought Commercial Hotel in Harris. Little did Henry (Hank), Wallace and Merritt Gordon know that  a few years later, their hotel would be the headquarters for one of the most infamous events ever to take place in Saskatchewan.

The Gordon brothers, born to Daniel and Maryann Gordon from Quebec, were raised in Minnesota where their father farmed. At least three of the brothers worked for a time in the mines at Butte, Montana, around the turn of the 20^th century.  At that time, Butte had a reputation as a wild town, where any vice was obtainable.

In 1904-05, the entire Gordon family - sons and parents - filed for homesteads in what became the Harris district. There were no towns and the railroad had not yet come through. All building supplies had to be hauled 60 miles from Saskatoon by wagon, so they built their homes from sod. By 1909, the village of Harris was under construction. Alex Shatilla built a three-story hotel on the corner of Railway and Main. That fall he sold the hotel to the Gordon brothers.

Maybe the brothers got bored. Maybe, after the excitement of the mining camps of Butte, Montana, they were looking for a reason to stir things up a bit. Whatever the case, when Alex McCarthy walked into the bar of the Commercial Hotel one hot, dry day in the summer of 1914 with a cigar box full of stones, Hank Gordon saw an opportunity. McCarthy was a bewhiskered American miner recently arrived in the area. He knew the Gordon brothers, so who knows? Maybe the whole “Ruby Rush” was a set-up right from the start.

Raw rubies from a mine. Image source

The story of the “Great Ruby Rush” goes like this:  While working on a road gang in the Bear Hill about 20 miles northwest of Harris, McCarthy spotted some red pellets in a big black rock that looked an awful lot like rubies. Knowing that the Gordon brothers had extensive mining experience, he put the stones in a cigar box and headed for the Commercial Hotel. Over a glass of beer, McCarthy showed his find to Hank, who then called in his brothers. “We’ll look after it,” McCarthy was told. Word spread that the Gordons had stolen off to Saskatoon to stake their claim. Someone alerted the Saskatoon Star, for soon the newspaper was running headlines of a ruby and gold discovery near Harris. Within days, thousands of “prospectors” arrived in the village of Harris by train, wagon, buggy and on foot, some no doubt dreaming of instant riches similar to those of the Klondike Gold Rush sixteen years earlier. The mad Ruby Rush was underway.

Garnets

The Gordon brothers and the Commercial Hotel profited greatly from the Ruby Rush. “Rubies” from the site of the discovery – a large black stone in the Bear Hills – were put on display at the hotel. The Gordons hauled loads of lumber, food and booze to the site where they operated a saloon, a restaurant and other entertainment in three large tents.  Prostitutes, card sharpies and con men followed in the wake of the Ruby Rush. Drunkenness was rampant, to the point that one man was found dead from alcohol poisoning. Eventually, word came from Saskatoon that the rubies were really garnets of little value.

For years afterwards, the people of Harris did not talk about the Ruby Rush.  It was a forbidden subject, especially as the main players and their families still lived in the community. It became easier to forget after the Commercial Hotel burned down in 1923.

From Harris: Heritage to Homage (1982)

Charles, the eldest Gordon brother, farmed at Harris until 1929 when he moved to BC. He died there in 1951. Hank maintained his interest in mining, and had mining ventures in Hope, BC. Fred’s family still farms near Harris. Lawrence (Larry) moved to Debden where he ran a cattle ranch. Francis (Frank) was a member of the Harris Elks Lodge for years. After the hotel fire of 1923, the Merritt Gordon family moved to Vancouver where for the next 20 years he owned and managed various hotels. The seventh son, Merritt, moved his family to Perdue and then Vancouver where he operated other hotels until the day he died.

The big black stone, source of the "rubies," in the yard of the Harris Museum

The Harris Hotel

Harris Hotel, 1980.  From Harris: Heritage to Homage (1980)

It was not until 1950 that Harris got another hotel. Fraser Laing moved a building from the “24 Wilson Farm” onto two lots on Railway Avenue and started the Harris Hotel, complete with beer parlour and family restaurant. A 2011 real estate listing stated that the hotel was not operating. The seven guest rooms were in need of renovations and the second floor required a fire escape. The hotel was for sale for the "drastically reduced" price of $99,000.

Harris Hotel, 2005. Photo courtesy of Ruth Bitner

© Joan Champ 2011

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