Hotel Wynyard: “A City Hotel in a Country Town”

Hotel Wynyard, c 1926. Source

John Oswell Lewis must have had considerable confidence in the future of the hotel business in Wynyard when he built a three-storey brick hotel on the southwest corner of Bosworth Street and Pacific Avenue - now Avenue B East - in 1925 at a cost of $40,000. Prohibition had just ended in Saskatchewan the year before, so perhaps Lewis hoped to open a drinking establishment in the new Hotel Wynyard. (The Town of Wynyard was also optimistic, contributing cash plus tax concessions for the construction of the hotel on the express understanding, the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix reported on March 3, 1932, that a provincial courthouse would be built in the community. The distinctive Weyburn courthouse was completed in 1928.)

Ad in the Star-Phoenix, January 25, 1930

Lewis, who also owned a hotel in Wadena, opened the 30-room hotel in 1926, but quickly put the business up for sale or lease. No buyers stepped forward, so from 1931 to 1935, Lewis rented the Hotel Wynyard to a Mrs. Allingham.

Beer Parlour Meets Resistance

Star-Phoenix, April 20, 1935

Controversy arose in 1935 when the Government of Saskatchewan allowed hotels to sell beer by the glass. The new legislation, passed on January 22, 1935, allowed communities to vote on whether they wanted a beer parlour in their local hotel. Temperance supporters in Wynyard circulated a petition in early April opposing the issue. 

Lewis promptly closed his hotel. His action so aroused the

Star-Phoenix, May 8, 1935

businessmen of Wynyard that, on May 7, 1935, over 30 of them met to pass a resolution calling upon Mr. Lewis to reopen the hotel. “It was pointed out,” the Star-Phoenix reported on May 8^th, “that Mr. Lewis had erected a hotel here which was an asset to the community in every respect and that he merited the support of the people.” The businessmen called for an early plebiscite in connection with the beer parlour. They also met with Lewis who agreed that “if the businessmen would circulate a petition among the citizens pledging their support and cooperation,” the hotel would be reopened for business. 

Encouraged by the support of Wynyard business community, Lewis enlarged the hotel, adding seven more rooms and a beer parlor at a cost of $10,000. “Many thirsts were allayed Friday when the new beer parlor in the Hotel Wynyard was formally opened,” the Star-Phoenix announced on September 10, 1935. “From Bosworth Street a double door and inlaid tile entrance greets the eye, while inside there is a spacious room with lofty ceiling and beautiful inlaid linoleum.” 

Labour Dispute 

In 1940, the Hotel Wynyard passed under Mr. Lewis’ estate to his daughter, Mrs. M. B. Grieve and from that time until 1953, the Grieves owned and operated the hotel as Hotel Lewis. A heated labour dispute arose that same year between employers and employees in the hotel and restaurant business in Wynyard. A negotiating meeting was held in March at which it was revealed that some employees were required to work as long as 70 hours per week, while the lowest rate of pay was less than $3 per week and the highest less than $6. “Employees of the Wynyard Hotel objected to living conditions,” the Star-Phoenix reported on April 18, “claiming that the staff quarters in the hotel, located in the basement, were not suitable.” 

Star-Phoenix, March 13, 1940

A tentative agreement was reached in March, setting a minimum rate of pay of $10.50 per week and a maximum working week of 54 hours under the provincial Industrial Standards Act. However, when it came time to ratify this schedule, the employers refused to sign. They claimed that they were intimidated by threats at the negotiating meeting in March, and that the negotiating meeting had been improperly called. On September 4, 1940, the Regina Leader-Post reported that provisions of Saskatchewan’s Minimum Wage Act would be applied to several towns, including Wynyard.

Post-1950 Changes

In 1953, Artwal Hotel Ltd. purchased the property. It was managed by Walter Thorfinnson under the name Artwal Hotel until 1960. The hotel was purchased about 1970 by Benito Falasca and Victor and Helen Bodnarchuck. They sold it to Lorrie Roslinski about 1975. The hotel was owned by Jack and Sybil Demaere from 1982 to 1986. Other owners included John Hawryluk, who changed the name back to the Hotel Wynyard; Mrs. Adeline Ryhorchuk; and the Szydlowski family, including parents Mike and Marie, and sons Theo, Richard, David and Greg. 

Exterior renovations to the Hotel Wynyard, 2005. Source: Facebook

Interior renovations to the Hotel Wynyard, 2005. Source: Facebook

In 2010, Richard Szydlowski advertised that the Wynyard Hotel was for sale for $899,000. The hotel featured an updated licensed beverage room with a 157-person capacity; major additions and renovations to main floor completed in 2005; 12 guest rooms on the second floor, with a common full bath; and a two-bedroom living quarters with suite on 3^rd floor, plus more guest rooms. The hotel was for sale again in 2013 on Kijiji, listed for $925,000. Today, the bar is called The Wrecking Bar & Grill.

The Wynyard Hotel, May 23, 2019. Joan Champ photo

©Joan Champ, 2019

Behind the Bar - Barrels, Beer Kegs, and Bung Starters

How did small-town Saskatchewan hotels serve beer in the early 1900s? It started with the shipment of wooden beer barrels by train to the hotels, unloaded on the railway station platform. The Bulyea local history book, Between Long Lake and Last Mountain (1982), recounts a story about two local farmers who crawled under the train platform “armed with a brace and bit, a washtub, and several buckets.” When the hotel owner arrived to pick up his delivery, he was dismayed to find an empty barrel.

Barrel terminology. Source

Because they had to stand up to pressure and liquid (and the occasional tampering), beer barrels were lined with pitch and made of thicker, good quality wood. The barrel was filled by the brewery through a bung hole. Once filled, a plug was hammered into the hole, sealing the barrel. 

Source

 

Star-Phoenix, June 1, 1948

Opening the beer barrel presented a challenge to many a hotel barkeep. They used what was called a “bung starter” – a heavy wooden mallet – to drive the wooden plug, bit by bit, up and out of the bung hole. Bill Graham, head bartender at the Great West Hotel in Davidson during the pre-1915 days, told the Star-Phoenix on June 1, 1948 that he had driven many a faucet pump into a keg of beer with a bung starter. Unless you were quick, Graham recalled, beer sprayed all over the place. “I got pretty good with that old bung starter,’ he said. “People would stand around and watch me with their mouths open.” The heavy bung starter also served as an excellent weapon for a beleaguered bartender.

To keep beer cool, many small-town hotels used ice that had been cut from local lakes or rivers. For the hotel at Fairlight, for example, this meant replenishing the ice in the draft beer cabinet on a daily basis and checking the storage of beer kegs in the basement cooler two or three times a week. Other hotels kept ice in an icehouse, packed in layers of sawdust.

During Prohibition, it was not unusual for hotel owners to keep a barrel or two of booze hidden away in the basement of their establishments. In 1925, police raided the Cecil Hotel in Moose Jaw. As the officers entered the hotel, they saw the man behind the bar pull a string. “The officers darted to the basement and attacked a lock cabinet, where they found a small keg overflowing with water driven into it at high pressure,” the Regina Leader-Post reported on February 3rd. “There was, of course, a smell of beer about the place.” The hotel had installed a beer keg apparatus – alleged to have been invented to defeat liquor enforcement methods – consisting of a double spigot connected to the water main. The pulling of a string flooded the keg and removed the beer within seconds.

Regina Leader-Post, February 26, 1935

In 1935, when the Government of Saskatchewan permitted hotels to sell beer by the glass, Saskatchewan’s hotels scrambled to reopen their beer parlours. This required a major outlay of cash for the hotel owners to meet the government’s rigorous architectural and regulatory standards for licensing. In addition to building renovations and new furniture, hotels had to install new drawing systems for beer, refrigeration equipment, and draft beer cabinets. “A 25-table beer parlour will require the most modern beer pumps, a cooling system, and cabinets,” the Leader-Post wrote on December 4, 1934. “It will need 100 chairs, at least 400 glasses and an insulated storage cellar.” This equipment cost thousands of dollars per hotel. Saskatchewan suppliers did well. The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix reported on April 8, 1935 that Sterling Millwork Company and Cushing’s Limited had many orders for tabletops and refrigerators, and the John East Foundry was manufacturing $8,000 worth of table bases.

Ad in the Star-Phoenix, April 30, 1935

1935 was also a boom year for beer keg manufacturers. The Leader-Post reported on May 4 that one Regina brewery acquired 2,900 kegs for its new draft beer business. Of these, 800 were steel, “the newest wrinkle in the keg business.” The remainder were wooden kegs which cost the breweries about $8 apiece; the steel kegs, which had an insulated aluminum lining, cost around $12. “Handling of the empties by the breweries entails a lot of work, the newspaper wrote. “They must be sterilized and repitched each time they go back to the brewery.”

With the outbreak of the Second World War, metal beer kegs were prohibited due to the war effort, but metal hoops and fittings were still allowed on wooden kegs.

Eventually, bottled beer became popular and draft beer sales declined. Today, draft beer is enjoying a comeback thanks to craft breweries.

A 1980s bar set-up, with bartender serving draft beer. Leader-Post, July 2, 1987.

©Joan Champ, 2019

The Colonsay Hotel – Canada’s “Leading Case” in Insurance Valuation Law

The Colonsay Hotel around the time it was built in 1910. Source

The Colonsay Hotel was at the centre of a major insurance case that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada in the early 1920s. The Court’s decision, handed down on June 15, 1923, greatly limited the liability of insurance companies on old buildings. It also became known as the “leading case” in Canadian insurance valuation cases.

Built in 1910, the 22-room hotel at Colonsay was sold two years later to John Daley for $20,000. In 1912, even though Colonsay had a population of only 150 people, optimism ran high. At that time, the bars were open, and the sale of liquor was lucrative for the hotel business.

With the advent of Prohibition in 1915, the value of the Colonsay Hotel, as with all Saskatchewan hotels, plummeted dramatically. In 1917, Daley was forced to turn the hotel was over to – ironically – the Saskatchewan Brewing Company to which Daley owed $3,300.

In February 1920, Peter and Rosalina Pura, in partnership with John Lashkewicz, formed the Colonsay Hotel Company and bought the village’s hotel from the brewing company for $3,950. The Puras decided to operate a movie theatre in the hotel and had a $400 addition built. They took out three insurance policies totalling $14,500 – one with the Canadian National Fire Insurance Company for $6,500 on the building and contents; one with the Union Insurance Society of Canton, Limited for $4,000 on the buildings and furniture; and one with the British Crown Assurance Corporation, Limited for $4,000 on the building and contents.

Lashkewicz sold the Puras his half interest in the hotel property on September 20, 1920. Three weeks later, on October 2, 1920, the hotel was destroyed by fire. What resulted, according to newspaper reports, was a lengthy court battle between the hotel owners and the insurance companies. 

Courts Hear Insurance Case

Leader-Post, June 16, 1923

The Puras had insured the hotel at a value that they believed to be the replacement value of the building -- $14,500. After the fire, however, the three insurance companies offered to indemnify the Colonsay Hotel Co. for only $5,100. The owners appealed and were awarded $13,500 by the Court of King’s Bench in Saskatoon.

The insurance companies turned to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, claiming that the original verdict should have been based on the actual value of the hotel at the time of the fire rather than on the cost of replacing the structure. The Court of Appeal maintained the original judge’s verdict and dismissed the appeal with costs.

The insurance companies then took the case to the Supreme Court of

Canada, which rendered its verdict on June 15, 1923. The five judges decided with the insurance companies, stating that the appeal should be allowed. They referred to the Saskatchewan Insurance Act, chapter 84, R.S.S. 1920, section 82 which stated that insurance companies were not liable for loss “beyond the actual value destroyed by fire.” The Supreme Court then ordered a new trial which took place in September 1923.  The insurance companies were eventually awarded $8,000.

The Leading Case in Canada

 

Star-Phoenix, Sept. 22, 1923

According to Marvin G. Baer in his article on insurance law published in the Ottawa Law Review (Winter 1976), “Canadian National Fire Insurance Co. v. Colonsay Hotel Co.” became “the leading case” in Canada for determining actual cash value in property insurance. Baer notes, however, that “Canadian courts have been reluctant to be tied down to any particular test” for valuation. The courts have since used some combination of replacement value less depreciation or market value.

The unique factor in the Colonsay Hotel case, Baer asserts, was the fact that the building’s depreciation in value came about not by physical deterioration, but by “obsolescence caused by external factors.” The external factor in this case was, of course, the closure of the bars. The value of a large hotel in a small town following Prohibition “is an obvious example of the kind of obsolescence which should be considered” when assessing its actual cash value.

 

After the ashes settled, a new, smaller hotel was built in Colonsay which still stands today. It is now called Kobis Bar and Grill.

The Colonsay Hotel, April 2006. Joan Champ photo

©Joan Champ, 2019