Black Gold in Coleville

The Coleville Hotel in 2007. Joan Champ photo

In 1951, the year that oil was discovered by the Royalite Oil Company near Coleville, the sleepy farming hamlet had a population of about 80 people. Over the next five years, the population of Coleville grew to over 430 residents. A refinery was built,  284 heavy crude oil wells were drilled in the area, and oil people moved into town. “Coleville’s boom has none of the earmarks of a temporary boost,” Munro Murray wrote in his August 7, 1954 feature on Coleville for the Star-Phoenix. “The new population are people who are building substantial homes and taking a real and intimate in the community life of the village.” A hotel was also built in Coleville to accommodate oil workers during the boom.

Click here to read the full story of the Coleville oil boom in the 1954 issue of the Star-Phoenix

Ad in the Star-Phoenix, Sept. 26, 1984.

In 1953, Bill Crawford formed a public company called the Coleville Development Company Ltd. with the sole purpose of building a hotel. Originally called the Prince Charles Hotel, the two-storey hotel had 21 rooms, a café and a beer parlour. The building was only partially completed when, in the spring of 1954, construction ceased due to lack of funds. Promoters of the company, Laird and Rumball of Regina, placed an advertisement in the Star-Phoenix in August offering shares in the Prince Charles hotel at $100 per share. In the meantime, part of the hotel structure was used as offices for the Royalite Oil Company.

After the hotel sat idle for a year and a half, Crawford ended up buying most of the shares in the hotel at a reduced price. He refinanced and completed the hotel in 1956. Greg Baribeau oversaw construction. Office space was completed first, and the hotel, when completed, contained 21 guest rooms. A café and bar have operated in the hotel since it opened. Other businesses in the hotel have included a liquor board store, an arcade, a hair dressing salon, and a movie rental store. 

The Prince Charles Hotel on the muddy streets of Coleville. Star-Phoenix, August 7, 1954.

Don Stewart, 1951. Source

On January 21, 1956, the Star-Phoenix announced that the Saskatchewan baseball great, Don Stewart, was retiring from the game to take over the Prince Charles Hotel at Coleville, "one of the best businesses in the province." Stewart was considered one of the premier atheletes on the prairies during the 1950s and gained a place in the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame. 

 

Oil continued to drive Coleville’s economy. The Star-Phoenix’s 1954 feature on the town stated that refinery was built and operating by March 1953, “and the town that used to see two or three trains a week now has two or three trains of tank cars leaving each day.” The Calgary Herald reported on January 17, 1957 that Royalite Oil Company had been turning out approximately 5,000 barrels of oil per day over the past three years. In September 1959, according to the Regina Leader-Post, Royalite sold its oil and gas producing properties in the Coleville field to General American Oils Ltd. for $2 million.

In the fall of 1984, owner Barry Sherstobitoff advertised in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix that the Coleville Hotel was for sale. The business featured a newly renovated, 58-seat beverage room; 14 hotel rooms with, he claimed, 100 percent occupancy; an 840 square foot office space currently leased; one 2,000 square foot office; and a 3-bedroom living accommodation for the owner. The main economic activity in Coleville was still the petroleum industry. 

Today, Coleville is an agricultural and oil community with a population of about 300.

The Coleville Hotel in 2007.  Joan Champ photo

© Joan Champ 2011

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