Hot Times in Ceylon: The North West Hotel

North West Hotel in Ceylon, 1912. Source

For a couple of years during the Roaring Twenties, a decade before Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger, gangs of bank robbers terrorized small towns along the Saskatchewan-Montana border. The son of the owner of the North West Hotel in Ceylon, Saskatchewan, is reputed to have been a member of one of these gangs. 

Billy Coffron, aka "Little Billy." Salt Lake Telegram, Dec. 6, 1923

On September 26, 1922, Billy Coffron, son of William J. Coffron and his wife Catherine (Cassie), was very likely one of the gang of bandits that blew open the vault of the Bank of Montreal in Ceylon, making off with $7,000 in cash, securities and bonds. According to Ceylon’s local history book, Builders of a Great Land (1980), the bank robbers had hopped into a get-away car, fired a rifle into the air “as a parting shot of glee and triumph,” and sped south through the Big Muddy and down into the United States. 

Illustration by Don Anderson from James Gray, "Cops and Robbers in the Roaring Twenties," Windsor Star, May 10, 1975.

After building and operating a couple of hotels in Minnesota, the Coffrons moved to Ceylon district of Saskatchewan in 1907 and filed on a homestead which was operated by 19-year-old Billy. Located 110 km due south of Regina,  Ceylon had its beginnings – like most prairie towns – with the construction of the railway through the district in 1910. Seeing an opportunity, the Coffrons moved to Ceylon in 1911 and built the North West Hotel on the corner of Main Street and 1^st Avenue, across the street from the Bank of Montreal. The $25,000 hotel opened on the evening of December 25, 1911; the following day, it burned to the ground.

Fire at the North West Hotel, December 26, 1911. From Builders of a Great Land (1980)

The fire started in a small building next door to the hotel and spread quickly. There was no firefighting equipment in Ceylon, so little could be done to battle the blaze. “People do strange things in times of excitement and this was evident the day of the fire,” Ceylon’s history book, Builders of a Great Land, states, “Townspeople and hotel occupants carried bedding and mattresses down the stairs and threw china basins and pitchers out of the windows to the frozen ground below.” Mildred Stephenson, the first baby born in the newly incorporated village, was born in the hotel the night of the fire. The Stephenson family lived in the hotel, where Mr. Stephenson worked. Mrs. Stephenson went into labour just as the hotel was being consumed by flames. She was moved into a little shack behind the hotel which was sprayed with water to keep it from burning while Mildred was being born.

Coffron rebuilt the North West Hotel in 1912 on the same foundation. It had 47 rooms. He and Cassie ran and excellent dining room and the bar was always busy. A story is told about a certain Irishman who had a few too many drinks at the hotel bar and was creating a disturbance. “Mr. Coffron got him upstairs and handcuffed him to the bedstead,” the history book recounts. “Before long, he was coming down the stairs carrying the bedstead with him.”

William Coffron (far right) at the bar of the first North West Hotel, 1911. From Builders of a Great Land (1980)

Lobby of the North West Hotel, 1912.  From Builders of a Great Land (1980)

Bill and Cassie Coffron, n.d.

In an attempt to curtail incidents such as this, the government of Saskatchewan introduced Prohibition in 1915. The bar of the North West Hotel in Ceylon was closed, and in its place the Coffrons set up the town’s first movie theatre. There was no money to be made without the bar, however, so, according to the town’s history book, the hotel was temporarily sold to “the Bromptons” who used the hotel as a cover for bootlegging during Prohibition. This was, in fact, the infamous Bronfman family which built its huge fortune from the liquor business during Prohibition. 

The Bronfmans had a string of “boozoriums” or liquor supply depots in communities along the Saskatchewan-North Dakota border from which American customers could purchase liquor. Because Ceylon was located 50 km north of the border, a boozorium was operated in the town – quite likely out of the North West Hotel. Whiskey from the Bronfman family’s distillery in Yorkton was shipped to safe storage in Ceylon and other border towns. Under cover of night, well-armed men in big cars arrived to haul the booze south along well-worn trails to U.S. customers. 

Booze begat violence. On September 27, 1922, the residents of Ceylon were awakened by the explosion that opened the Bank of Montreal's vault to the gang of thieves. One theory was that the thieves knew the bank’s vault would contain the proceeds of the boozorium. Billy Coffron, who often hung out at his parents’ hotel across the street from the bank, may have had some inside information. According to James Gray’s book, The Roar of the Twenties (1975), “The Ceylon robbery was especially noteworthy because the robbers not only took off with all the cash on hand, they took a large folder filled with promissory notes, mortgages, and sundry other securities for debt. It was the greatest single debt adjustment act in Saskatchewan history for it reduced the indebtedness of the entire community to zero.”

On November 28, 1923 at Havre, Montana, detectives employed by several bankers' associations arrested Billy Coffron, Roy Hauger, and "Doc" Walkup, all from Ceylon. The three Canadians were charged with robbing the Bank of Montreal in Ceylong and the Union Bank at Moosomin in 1922; a bank at Dollard, Saskatchewan in 1923; and several banks in the States. According to the Regina Leader-Post, Billy's mother travelled to Havre in early December and secured counsel for her son's trial. She must have found sharp defense lawyers, for on July 15, 1924, the Leader-Post reported that Billy had been freed on all charges and was returning home to Ceylon. He claimed that he had been railroaded by the police.

The 1926 Canada census shows Billy Coffron residing on the family homestead near Ceylon. His parents were still operating the North West Hotel in town. They sold the hotel, which still stands today on the corner of Main and 1^st, in 1927.

The Ceylon Hotel today.From www.saskschools.ca/~pangman/communit/rmtown/ceylon/

© Joan Champ 2011

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Hotel Allan: A Bear Story

Allan Hotel and Steak Pit, 2006. Joan Champ photo

Peter J. Loehndorf was growing restless. In 1920, despite his rather impressive accumulation of seven quarters of land, plus one hundred and fifty head of cattle on his homestead near Leofeld, Saskatchewan, he was ready for a change. Perhaps his restlessness was due to the fact that he and his wife Maria had ten children, including two sets of twins. Every birth had necessitated another addition to the family’s log home since he had filed for the homestead in 1903. Then, in 1917, Peter’s father, John Loehndorf arrived from Germany to make his home with them. The thought of owning a hotel with lots of bedrooms must have appealed to Peter. In the spring of 1920, he sold his farm, bought the Hotel Allan, and moved in with his large family. 

Hotel Allan had been built by Thomas Murphy in about 1910, and owned for several years thereafter by John Bitz and Tony Leier (who lost his life attempting to save a young child in the Elstow Hotel fire of 1919). In 1915, when the hotel business was no longer lucrative due to Prohibition, the Bitz family gave up the hotel and moved back to the farm. 

Hotel Allan, c 1940. From Times Past to Present (1981)

In 1936, changes in Saskatchewan’s liquor laws allowed Peter to open a beer parlour in Hotel Allan. It is quite likely that his wife, a deeply religious woman, did not approve. “Maria’s greatest comfort was the rocking chair and her faithful companion was the Rosary with which she prayed daily with sincere devotion,” the family’s history in Times Past to Present (Allan, 1981) explains. “Daily ritual required the family to recite meal prayers, morning and evening prayers.” Maria’s prayers may even have helped to save the Allan hotel from destruction by fire in 1935. “Fire ravaged building after building as it raced towards the hotel,” Allan’s history book records. “Women flocked to the church to pray. It was only through the tireless efforts of the fire brigade, and the prayers too, that the hotel came through with just one wall scorched.” 

Peter and Maria Loehndorf, n.d. From Times Past to Present (1981)

After the death of his father in 1923, Peter had been pursuing a new hobby – taxidermy. He had taught himself how to prepare, stuff and mount the skins of dead animals and birds – his sons’ hunting trophies – for display. People came from miles around to see his finished work which lined the walls of the beverage room in Hotel Allan. 

In 1941, Peter added a live animal to his menagerie. During one of his trips to northern Saskatchewan, he captured a bear cub. To the amazement of the children of Allan, Peter kept the bear in a pen beside the hotel. A year later, the bear had grown so large and strong that it was dangerous. Peter’s solution was simple. “Bear meat being a delicacy, [the bear] was butchered and his meat distributed to various families around town,” the family history recounts. “Peter made up some summer sausage … and sent some of it to his son, Paul, who was still in England serving with the Canadian Armed Forces.” There is no mention of Peter applying his taxidermist skills to the bear's hide. Peter and Maria Loehndorf, both in their mid-70s, sold the Allan Hotel in 1946. 

Allan Hotel and Steak Pit, 2006. Joan Champ photo

When I stopped by the Allan Hotel in 2006, the wooden exterior of the Allan Hotel had been covered over with stucco and two layers of insulation. Nothing remained of Loehndorf's stuffed menagerie in either the 121-seat beverage room or the 32-seat restaurant on the main floor. The Allan Hotel was "semi-modern," with ten guest rooms on the second floor - three with sinks in the room. All shared a bathroom and shower, accessible from the hallway. The owners' two-bedroom living quarters was also located on the second floor.

Architectural History Society of Saskatchewan 3D Model Saskatchewan

© Joan Champ, 2011

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