Railway & Main: Small-Town Saskatchewan Hotels: 1939

King George Hotel, c. 1940. Source

Originally named the Windsor Hotel, the King George Hotel in Melville was built in 1909 by J. N. (Joseph Napoleon) Pomerleau. It was one of three hotels in the community. The 1916 Canada Census shows that Joseph Pomerleau, age 22, and Antoinette Pomerleau, age 20, (both single) were managing the hotel on Main Street. Twenty-four other people were living at the hotel that year, including the cook Won Yee, two waitresses, and two servants. Most of the hotel guests at the time of the 1916 census-taking were railway workers.

The hotel's name was changed to the King George in 1919. By 1921, proprietor J. E. Benwell had redecorated the hotel from top to bottom.

Regina Leader-Post, May 21, 1921.

Royal Visit of 1939

The hotel's name must have resonated during the Royal Visit of 1939. On June 3rd of that year, over 60,000 people thronged to Melville, population 3,000, to catch a glimpse of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The visit was to be a ten-minute whistle-stop, but in view of the magnitude of the crowd, organizers agreed to stop for half an hour. Melville pulled out all the stops for the Royal Visit celebration. According to the Regina Leader-Post (June 5, 1939), the town staged one of its biggest sports days in history. "Concessionaires made money and the streets throbbed with loudspeaker advertising until after midnight," the newspaper stated. "Hotels and cafes were packed for hours, and at meal times hundreds jammed their way into them, demanding meals. Beer parlours had one of the biggest days of business since beer parlours came to Saskatchewan, one being reported as taking in $800 for the day."

Crowd waiting for the Royal Couple, CN station, Melville, 1939.

http://www.melvilleadvance.com/CN_Station_Restoration/CN_Station_Restoration.html

"Duke' Dutkowski of Hockey Fame

The hotel was sold by Jim Benwell in 1940 to a company headed by A. Borget. In 1941, guest rooms at the King George Hotel were renovated, with plumbing and new woodwork installed in each suite. On January 13, 1942, the Leader-Post reported that there had been a small fire in suite No. 9 in the northeast corner of the hotel. The fire department saved the building from destruction, and hotel manager "Duke" Dutkowski had carpenters on the job repairing the damage within a few hours.

"Duke" Dutkowski, player with Saskatoon Sheiks, 1922. Source

Laudus J. "Duke" Dutkowski had been a professional hockey player for more than a decade before becoming a hotel manager in August of 1940. He was profiled by the Leader-Post on May 16, 1945 while still operating the King George. Born in Regina in 1900, he started playing with the Saskatoon Crescents in 1921; then the Regina Captials until 1925; the Rosebuds in Portland, Oregon, and the Chicago Blackhawks throughout the 1920s; ending his career in 1934 with the New York Americans - the Big Apple's first professional hockey team. Dutkowski coached senior hockey in Regina before taking over management of the King George Hotel for Borget's company.

Concern for Comfort

George Zylich was the manager of the King George on July 19, 1948 when he was interviewed by the Leader-Post. Zylich had spent 13 years as a commercial traveller for the Scott Fruit Company, so he was particularly aware of the needs of the travelling salesmen who patronized his hotel. He said he spent most of his Sundays in his hotel's lobby getting better acquainted with the salesmen stopping over for the weekend. He made a point of familiarizing himself with their product lines, and when new men came into the territory, he was able to connect them with contacts. New to the hotel business, Zylich told the newspaper that he felt a hotel "must keep a new face." Things had to change around every so often to keep the place looking fresh and "homey." His firm had followed this principle, giving each guest room a different motif. He said people had dropped into the hotel between trains just to see the rooms which they had heard about.

A Modern-Day Hotel

By 2006, the three-storey hotel on Main Street had been through many upgrades and renovations. Stucco had been applied over the brick exterior. The 212-seat Windsor Tavern on the hotel’s main floor was open seven days a week. It had six video lottery terminals (VLTs), a dance floor, a DJ booth, a big screen TV and a Bose sound system valued at over $20,000. The tavern featured occasional live entertainment, and weekly specials such as “Sunday nine-ball tournaments, Wednesday Night Slow-Pitch BBQ in the beer patio, Friday Night "wing night" with tricycle races and more!” Ten guest rooms on the second floor, two of which were suites, had been modernized with full bathrooms, new windows and air conditioning. The hotel’s third floor had not been renovated in 2006.

The King George Hotel, Melville, 2006. Joan Champ photo

The kitchen of the King George Hotel, Melville, 2006.

Destroyed by an Arsonist

On February 17, 2010, Melville's historic King George Hotel was destroyed by a suspicious fire that started in the kitchen. Several hundred people gathered to watch the firefighters battle the blaze. Hotel owner Sam Pervez, told the Leader-Post that, prior to the blaze, the updated bar had only been open for about three weeks and the restaurant was just days away from reopening. A resident of the landmark hotel, 63-year-old Roland St. Amand, pleaded guilty to setting the fire and was sentenced to three and a half years behind bars.

One of the on-lookers shot this video: