The First Steak Pit in Saskatchewan: Maryfield’s Arlington Hotel

Maryfield's Arlington Hotel, September 2012. Source

In 1976, Reg and Louise Dlouhy, along with Louise’s brother Ivan Findlay, bought the Arlington Hotel in Maryfield. One year later, they opened what is reported to be the first steak pit in Saskatchewan -- some say the first in Canada. Whatever the case, the steak pit proved to be a major attraction for Maryfield, which is located between Moosomin and the Manitoba border in the southeastern part of the province.

The Dlouhys had spent many years on the road, touring with the Regina-based band, Gene Dlouhy and His Swingin’ Canadians. Click here to hear the band's song, Drinking Wine,released in 1964.Throughout the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, Reg played saxophone with his brother Gene, who played trumpet. In 1970, the band moved to Calgary. They were in the process of moving to Las Vegas when Reg suffered a heart attack. Since Louise was from Maryfield, the couple decided to move there with their three children and get into the hotel business. 

Bartender at the Arlington Hotel, Maryfield, July 18, 1978. Regina Leader-Post.

“I think it was the travelling we did, and our association with supper clubs that gave us the necessary insight into the business,” Reg explained to the Regina Leader-Post in July 1978. “We have seen some beautiful places, and some that weren’t so nice. And we have taken the best of all of them and tried to mold it into our own district.” That same month, the Dlouhys served their 5,000^th steak in the eight months since they opened the steak pit.

Louise Dlouhy watching a customer grill his steaks. Regina Leader-Post, July 18, 1978.

The Dlouhys bought their beef from the Co-op in Brandon, Manitoba. “We never freeze the steaks – well, they aren’t around long enough to be frozen,” Reg told the newspaper. Customers could pick and cook their own steaks on a natural gas grill. The only food that came out of the kitchen was salad, a potato, and bread to accompany the steak.

History of the Arlington Hotel

The Arlington Hotel at Maryfield, c1912.  Source

Built in 1906, the three-story Arlington Hotel on the corner of Main Street and Assiniboine Avenue in Maryfield, Saskatchewan, featured an attractive front porch and second-floor balcony. The hotel had a ballroom, a dining room, and – of course – a bar.

Oluf Olson and his wife Dolly did their best to make their hotel guests comfortable. The bar in particular was very hospitable. In 1910, Olson was fined $50 plus court costs for keeping the bar open after hours. The Canada census shows that, in 1911, the hotel was a thriving business. In addition to the Olson family, the hotel had 18 registered “lodgers,” four chambermaids, two Scottish porters, two telephone operators, an Irish bartender, and a Chinese cook all residing within its walls.

When Prohibition began on July 1, 1915, Maryfield’s Arlington Hotel managed to stay open for business under the ownership of James Anderson. All the beautiful fixtures in the barroom – the gleaming brass and the long, polished wood bar, were removed and replaced by a pool room. Operating a hotel during Prohibition had its challenges. Without bars, hotel values plummeted.. In 1919, John Dodds purchased the Arlington Hotel and under his watch, the thirsty traveller was able to satisfy his wants. The town’s local history reports, “Mr. Dodds … was caught on at least two occasions by a [provincial] liquor inspector and paid the appropriate fines for his indiscretion.”

John James (J. J.) Harris and his wife Florence owned and operated the Arlington Hotel from 1922 to 1944. In 1935, when the Saskatchewan government finally permitted the sale of beer by the glass, Harris applied for a liquor license. A “local option vote” was held in Maryfield and the vote passed by a margin of only six votes – 79 to 73. The Arlington Hotel was able to serve beer once again.

Fire Destroys the Hotel 

 

One evening in late February 1945, Falmer and Louise Skallerup were preparing dinner for the Arlington’s guests. They had purchased the hotel in 1944 and were run off their feet. It was the first day of the biggest men’s curling bonspiel that Maryfield had ever hosted, and the hotel was full. At about 4:30 p.m., a fire broke out in the kitchen. Thanks to Mrs. Skallerup, all the hotel occupants were alerted and got out of the building safely – just as the fire swept up the stairwell, engulfing the entire building in flames. Firemen from Moosomin, 30 miles away, raced their pumper truck to Maryfield where townspeople had formed a bucket brigade to try and save the hotel. By the time the firemen arrived, the flames had destroyed the hotel and were threatening nearby buildings. Despite the disaster, the men’s bonspiel went ahead, with the curlers accommodated in a temporary dormitory set up at the Maryfield auditorium.

 Out of the Ashes, Into a Steak Pit

The Arlington Hotel was rebuilt a year after the fire and still stands in Maryfield today. When the Dlouys bought it, they completely remodeled the building, reducing the number of guest rooms from thirteen to nine in order to accommodate their family of five.

 

Maryfield's Arlington Hotel, 2009. Google Maps

Today, Chilly's Pub & Steak Pit in the Arlington Hotel still features cook-your-own steaks accompanied by salad, garlic bread and baked potato. Apparently, the chicken wings and ribs are also very good.

 

© Joan Champ, 2018. 

Tabor Light at Esterhazy

Joan Champ photo*

A ghostly light seen at the Tabor Cemetery, 17 miles northeast of Esterhazy, caused a sensation in Saskatchewan for several weeks in 1938. It was front-page news, with extensive coverage on the radio. “The Tabor Light was sometimes described as a ball of fire, slightly reddish or pinkish in color, and occasionally flickering,” Jo-Anne Christensen wrote in her book, Ghost Stories of Saskatchewan (1995). “Witnesses always said the glow appeared to be directed inward, the light never illuminated the surrounding area … and it would either dance among the trees skirting the cemetery, or speed along the road that ran past it.”

There were some superstitious people in Esterhazy who saw an evil omen in the spooky light. Descendants of the original Czech colony feared that the Tabor Light was a warning and that something sinister was going to happen. The Tabor Cemetery was remembered as a cemetery where atheists were buried, the Leader-Post reported on November 30, 1938. It was said that some of the Czechs who came to the country in 1885 “spread their gospel there was no such thing as a God or hereafter, and their people were buried in this ground."

The site became a popular spot for people from miles around. On the night of December 2^nd, for example, the Leader-Post reported, “A laughing thrill-seeking crowd of more than 80 persons including a cameraman and reporter jammed the bleak Tabor cemetery … in a vain search for Esterhazy's phantom light.”  About thirty cars from Churchbridge, Yarbo, and Langenburg were parked around the tiny burial ground for hours, the newspaper continued. “The presence of so many lights, however, definitely handicapped the watchers and made the task of shooting the strange ball of red fire a practical impossibility.” Eventually, the iron gates to the Tabor Cemetery had to be locked to stop the desecration of graves.  

The Central Hotel in Esterhazy, 1958. Image source

The supernatural visitation drew many guests to the Central Hotel in Esterhazy. The Leader-Post reported on December 6^th that ever since the light was first seen, the hotel proprietor, James Brown, had been “losing sleep attending to numerous visitors.” The newspaper continued:

Best joke in Esterhazy is one perpetrated on Mr. Brown in connection with his electric light services. Canadian Utilities of Calgary has the franchise at Esterhazy and supplies the electricity to consumers in the town. With his light bill for the last month, Mr. Brown received another bill, calling for charges made for consumption of light made by the 'will o’ the wisp' after midnight. At first Mr. Brown was mystified, but on closer examination, was satisfied office boys at Calgary were just having fun.

The Esterhazy hotel was not the only hotel in the district impacted by the eerie light. Like most of the people in the province, T. Raymond, the owner of the Tantallon Hotel, was curious. On the night of December 5^th, Raymond decided to leave his wife and young daughter alone in the hotel, and drive 20 miles (30 kilometres) northwest to Esterhazy, where he joined the nightly vigil at the Tabor Cemetery. In the early hours of December 6^th, Mrs. Raymond was awakened by the sound of her child’s coughing. Smelling smoke, she ran into the hotel hallway, where she saw that the entire lower floor of the Tantallon Hotel was in flames. She threw bedding and valuables out of an upstairs window, and then escaped with her daughter. The entire hotel building was destroyed. 

Esterhazy Hotel, 2006. Sheave wheel (pulley used in ore extraction) in foreground.
Courtesy of Ruth Bitner

Click here and here to read more about the Tabor Light near Estevan.

*Photo taken at the Crooked Trees north of Speers, October 2008; flare added.

© Joan Champ 2011

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Wolseley Hotels: From the Empire to the Leland

Leland Hotel, 2010. Image source

Wolseley’s first hotel was a primitive affair. Built in 1883 by W. D. Perley and E. A. Banbury, the one-storey, wood-frame building had a canvas top.  A more substantial hotel called the Leland was built in 1901 by Robert E. Hall and his wife, Eliza. Meanwhile, Perley and Banbury built the brick three-storey Empire Hotel on Sherbrooke Street.  In 1923, when the Leland Hotel was destroyed by fire, the owners bought the Empire Hotel and renamed it the Leland.

William Dell Perley and Edwin A. Banbury

Edwin and Edith Banbury, 1886. From

Bridging the Past: Wolseley and District, 1880-1980

Wolseley’s first settler, Edwin Ashely Banbury, arrived from Ontario at what was then called Wolf Creek in 1882. William Dell Perley arrived that same year with his young family after being defeated in a provincial election in New Brunswick. Both men started farming, and soon afterwards built several small businesses, one of which was the wood and canvas hotel. A fellow named G. Swift wrote a letter to his aunt in 1899, in which he described the conditions in the hotel in Wolseley:

I was shown a room, I’ll never forget – Very small, rough boards, not finished. Old fashioned bed, washstand and chair, and no lock on the door. (I should have been thankful there was a door.) So I had to barricade it by pulling the bed across and piling a stand and chair between it and the side of the house. … The bed was unmade from the last occupant, so no getting undressed that night. … In the morning after putting things back in place I went down to get breakfast. I found a room where five or six men were sitting down to a table made of three rough boards put together, there was no cloth to cover them. I was told to sit down and asked if I would have some porridge. Not knowing what that might be I asked if they had anything else, and was told they had some beefsteak so ordered thinking that I would enjoy that after my long trip. When it was served I found my knife was not sharp enough to cut it. I drank my tea and returned to my room for my coat.

Car race in Wolseley, 1912, with Empire Hotel on right. Source: Bridging the Past

In 1906, Perley and Banbury built the Empire Hotel on Sherbrooke Street.

W. D. Perley. Source

W.D. Perley was elected to the Northwest Territorial Council for Qu’Appelle in 1885.  In 1887, he was the first elected MP for the riding of East Assiniboia. After only two years, Perley resigned to accept an appointment to the Senate in 1889.  He served on the Senate until his death in 1909.

Banbury died at age 97 in 1955. Source

Edwin A. Banbury was the co-founder, along with his brother Robert, of the Beaver Lumber Company. His hotel venture provided him with the capital he needed to establish Banbury Bros. Lumber Company in the 1890s.  A series of mergers and takeovers with partners and competing firms led to the formation of one large lumber company in 1906.  A name was needed that had something to do with wood.  Edwin Banbury came up with "Beaver" which remained the company’s name until 1999, when it was taken over by Home Hardware. In 1886, Banbury married W. D. Perley’s daughter, Edith. They had eight children, three of whom died from diphtheria at a young age.

 

The Leland Hotel

Windsor Hotel on left, before the 1905 fire.

From Bridging the Past

In 1901, Robert E. and Eliza Hall built their first hotel, the Windsor, on the corner of Sherbrook and Front Streets. This wooden building burned down in 1905, along with most of the other buildings on the street. The Halls, who were among the first homesteaders in the Wolseley area, then set about building a new, three-storey brick hotel on Front Street, half a block west of their first hotel. 

Hotel Leland, centre, c. 1920. Image source

The Leland Hotel, as it was called, had distinctive arched windows on the second floor. The Halls had two children, Herbert and Pearl. Robert ran the hotel with the helped of his son. When Robert retired and moved to Victoria, the Leland was operated by Pearl and her husband, Charlie Corbett.

In the middle of the night on October 6, 1923, a fire broke out in the basement of the Leland Hotel. Within four hours, the hotel burned to the ground. All of the people inside the hotel at the time managed escaped with their lives. About half of the 30 occupants were guests – mainly commercial travellers; the rest were regular roomers, boarders and hotel staff. The building filled with dense smoke, and some people had great difficulty finding their way to an exit. The proprietors of the Leland, Pearl Corbett and her four children, were among the first to be rescued. Some of the hotel guests had to jump from the upper floors. Others lowered themselves from the windows of their rooms with ropes. One salesman crawled down the hall on his hands and knees, through the acrid smoke, only to fall down the stairs. He managed to get out the front door with only a few bruises. 

Leland Hotel after the fire, 1923. From Bridging the Past

According to the Morning Leader, Frank Vincent, the postmaster for Wolseley who roomed on the hotel’s third floor, had the most spectacular escape. “Overcome by smoke in his bedroom he could only be reached by a couple of ladders,” the newspaper recounted. “The upper ladder was held from the top of the lower ladder by two men while the third assisted Mr. Vincent over the window sill and down the perilous upper ladder.”

The heroine of the disaster was Gladys Macdonald, the night telephone operator in the telephone building at the rear of the hotel. She called the police and fire brigade, and then stuck to her post throughout the conflagration, while “every minute the telephone building was threatened with destruction by the flames and was enveloped with dense smoke for hours.”  None of the contents of the hotel was saved. People lost everything except the pajamas they were wearing as they escaped the blaze. Click here to read the full story of the fire on page page 12 of the Morning Leader.

The new Leland in the former Empire Hotel building. From Bridging the Past

After the fire, the Corbetts and Grandma [Eliza] Hall bought the Empire Hotel and renamed it the Leland Hotel. This hotel was purchased by Victor Hunter and family in 1971. Vic Hunter was still the owner in 2010.

© Joan Champ 2011

Tisdale Tragedy: Anatomy of a Hotel Fire

 

The Imperial Hotel, c. 1912 Source

The following graphic account of a horrible hotel fire in Tisdale was published over several days in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix (republished in the Regina Leader-Post) by one very thorough, unnamed reporter. All of the photos shown below are from the newspaper. Click here to read the full account from February 8, 1933.

Dolly Couture, daughter of owner

In the early hours of a frigid February morning in 1933, a devastating fire at the Imperial Hotel in Tisdale took the lives of eight people. Mrs. C. Couture, owner of the hotel, and her three daughters were among the victims. The others who died in the fire were Emma Roy, the hotel chambermaid; Jack F. Marsh, commercial traveller for Adams Brothers Harness Company of Saskatoon; Fraser Paige, commercial traveller for Spillers Milling Company of Calgary; and – a few days after the fire – William John “Sandy” McPherson, the 65-year-old manager of the hotel. The coroner’s inquest determined that the terrible fire was caused by a match or cigarette butt that had been tossed into the woodbox beside the stove in the hotel lobby.

The Cause of the Fire

Mah Choon, manager of the restaurant at the Imperial Hotel, rose at 5:00 a.m. to prepare breakfast for six commercial travellers who were leaving Tisdale on the 6:10 a.m. train. The temperature outside was 45 degrees below zero and there was a strong northwest wind. Choon served the meals at about 5:30, and after the travellers were finished, he cleared the dishes and took them to the kitchen. As he came back into the restaurant, he noticed fire in the rotunda through the glass doors. The cook went into the rotunda where he saw flames coming out of the woodbox, licking the wall. He ran back into the kitchen for a bucket of water, but by the time he returned to the rotunda, it was too late. The fire had spread to blankets that were hung to dry on the stair banister, and was raging up to the second floor. Choon ran to the foot of the stairs and called, “Fire! Fire!” He was immediately answered by Mrs. Couture. Choon then went to wake up his two restaurant partners, Roy Mah and E. Kin. The three Chinese men then escaped the building.

Chambermaid Emma Roy

The hotel night porter, Jack McLory,was also working that fateful Wednesday morning. Because it was extremely cold outside, he stoked both the furnace in the basement and the stove in the rotunda. A few minutes before six, he escorted the departing travellers across the street to the Tisdale train station, carrying their bags. For some reason, McLory turned around about a minute or two after leaving to look back at the hotel and saw a sudden burst of light through its front doors. Within five minutes, the entire two-storey building was engulfed in flames. So severe was the fire that the plate glass windows of the store buildings across the street cracked under the intense heat – in spite of the 45 below zero temperature. Telephone communication between Tisdale and the outside world was cut off for hours by the conflagration.

George Booth, Tisdale’s night policeman had accompanied McLory and the six salesmen from the hotel to the train station. At the coroner’s inquest, Booth stated that some of the men had been smoking in the hotel. One of them – it was never determined whom – must have carelessly thrown a cigarette butt or match into the woodbox. McClory admitted to the jury that there had been paper and other rubbish in the box. “I had not cleaned it out for three or four days,” he said. “The box was open and had no cover.” (Leader-Post, February 10, 1933)

The Survivors

C.B. Conley of Winnipeg broke his hip when he leapt to safety through a second-storey window. After landing, his hands and feet became badly frostbitten. Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Otterbein escaped through the window of their hotel room, jumping into the snow behind the general store next door. They were rescued there, half frozen in the snow by the storekeeper. The couple was immediately taken to the hospital, along with C. W. Martin of Prince Albert, who also escaped through a window. His feet were badly frozen.

Charles Otterbein was a district forest ranger from Nipawin, formerly of Hudson Bay Junction. He was in Tisdale on business, accompanied by his wife. His hands and face were badly burned by the blaze, and his feet were badly frozen. In an interview for the Leader-Post, Mrs. Otterbein, feet heavily bandaged, remembered: “I heard someone [Sandy McPherson] running around in the hall in excitement and we got up to see what it was. I opened the door. The flames were right in the hallway. We could not get out. My husband broke the window and I got on the roof of the next building, then my husband went back in again. I was ready to go in after him, he seemed to be so long. I began to call him, when he came out the window again. His face was burned and the flames were already coming through the window.” Click here for full story

John L. Tennent

Of the thirteen people inside the Imperial Hotel at the time of the fire, only one man escaped unharmed. He was John L. Tennent from Saskatoon, a representative of General Motors Products of Canada, Ltd. Thankful to be alive, Tennent told the Star-Phoenix, “Two seconds more and I’d have been there yet.” The Saskatoon traveller said he owed his life to Sandy McPherson, who spread the alarm up and down the hotel hallways, endangering his own life. Tennent grabbed his clothes and sped out of his room into the hallway which was already on fire. “I didn’t know which way to go,” he continued. “I never was in the hotel before, but I headed for the back of the building.” When Tennent got to the back door, it was locked. He had to force it open. Clad only in his pajamas, he ran barefoot down the street to the safety of the Tisdale Hotel. Interestingly, when Tennent registered at the Imperial Hotel the night before, he was shown to a room on the second floor. Because of his inherent fear of fire in “country hotels,” however, he had his room changed to one on the first floor. That spur-of-the-moment decision likely saved his life.

The Dead

Newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Fraser M. Paige

Screams of the dying could be heard by the frenzied volunteer fire-fighters soon after the outbreak. The building was razed with such speed, however, that they were unable to force their way into the inferno. It was so cold that the ice formed inside the fire hoses, rendering them useless. The fire was not brought under control until the next day. The metal roof of the hotel had collapsed, completely covering the burning debris. The remains of the victims, "simply skeletons," were not located until two days later when the roof was lifted.

 

Jack F. Marsh

Jack F. Marsh, the Saskatoon commercial traveller who perished in the fire, was survived only by his wife. Marsh, who had resided in Saskatoon for a number of years, was well known on the commercial travellers’ circuit. Fraser Paige, formerly of Calgary, had recently married. He and his wife had lived in Prince Albert for about one year. Both Marsh and Paige were likely disoriented in their strange surroundings during the early morning, and could not find their way out of the hotel.

The young chambermaid, Emma Roy was from McKague, Saskatchewan. It was determined that she became trapped in her room at the time of the fire.

Margaret Couture, age 19

The Couture family, formerly of Saskatoon, was all but wiped out by the fire except for a son, Edward, who operated the Kinistino Hotel, also owned by his mother. Mrs. Couture, the owner of the Imperial Hotel, had been ill for some time. She had been released from Holy Family Hospital in Prince Albert on January 20th, returning to Tisdale. She still was confined to her bed at the time of the fire. Her eldest daughter, Dorothy ‘Dolly’ Couture, age 22, had graduated from the nursing program at St. Paul’s Hospital in Saskatoon in 1932. Dolly had arrived in Tisdale a few days before the disaster to nurse her mother. Dolly and her sister Margaret, 19, both “strikingly beautiful,” were graduates of Tisdale high school. Their younger sister, Simone, 13, attended public school in Tisdale. It is thought that the Couture daughters rushed to their mother’s bedside in an attempt to save her. All four perished in the same room. They apparently did not even attempt to escape through a window. At the funeral, the remains of the three Couture girls were placed in one coffin. The Tisdale schools were closed that day out of sympathy and respect for the Couture family.

The Imperial Hotel on left, 1928 Source

Sandy McPherson, the hero of the Imperial Hotel fire, died of his injuries in the Tisdale hospital four days later. McPherson, partially clad, had rushed along the hotel halls, going from room to room, warning the guests to save themselves. When the fire became too intense, he made a dash for the front door, running through a solid wall of fire. He emerged barefooted onto the street. “So cold were the sidewalks,” the Leader-Post reported, “that the flesh was torn from the soles of his feet, and as he rushed to the Tisdale Hotel, tracks of blood showed at every step. His hair was burned from his head; his face was badly cut and burned on one side almost to the bone.”  While in hospital, McPherson continually asked how everybody was from the hotel. Due to his critical condition, however, he was never informed of the deaths of the people he had so desperately tried to save. 

© Joan Champ 2011

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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.
Image source

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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