The Hotels in Shellbrook

Shellbrook Hotel, c. 1912. Image source

On a crisp September day in 1912, a shooting party had just returned to Shellbrook. Mrs. J. B. Stirton, wife of the proprietor of the Stirton Hotel, had been out with the party. The group was taking their guns out of their car when a .22 calibre rifle accidentally discharged. Mrs. Stirton was shot through the heart and killed instantly. She had been standing on the running board of the automobile when the gun went off. Click here for story.

“The accident was witnessed by many persons on the street who had no idea of the seriousness of the affair until Mrs. Stirton fell into the arms of one of the attendants of the hotel who happened to be behind her,” the Shellbrook Chronicle reported on September 14^th. “It has had a sad and painful effect upon everyone in town.” The Stirtons had four young children. The Stirton Hotel was located on Main Street and First Avenue, one block north of the railroad station in Shellbrook.

George Stalker

George Stalker and his partner Howard Hudson had nabbed the best location in town when they built the Shellbrook Hotel in 1909. It was located on the corner of Main Street and Railway Avenue, directly across from the train depot. Stalker assumed sole ownership of the hotel in 1915. Originally  from Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Stalker came to Prince Albert in 1896 where he worked in for a time the harness-making business before getting into the hotel business. He and W. E. Gladstone took over the Queen’s Hotel in Prince Albert; he later acquired the Royal Hotel in that city. In 1905, Stalker partnered with Hudson, and spared no expense building the grand three-storey Kinistino Hotel. Later he acquired hotel in Shellbrook and eventually disposed of all his hotel interests except the Shellbrook Hotel. Stalker married Alice Oram in 1897 in Prince Albert. After Alice died, Stalker married Anna Stewart in 1913 and they had one daughter. 

Stalker served as the overseer of the village of Shellbrook since its incorporation in 1909. He died in 1931 at age 56, and his widow, Anne Stalker, continued to run the hotel until 1941 when she sold it to James Bowles of Netherhill, Saskatchewan. 

Shellbrook Hotel, c. 1920. Image source

In March of 1935, the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix reported that the “commodious” Shellbrook Hotel was well known for its general comforts and conveniences. ”The hotel is operated on the American plan [meaning that meals were included in the room rate] and has some 30 guest rooms, well-furnished and lighted, warm and scrupulously clean. … The meals and dining room service are all that could be desired. A specialty is the steam-heated bath. There are also sample rooms for commercials. Mrs. Stalker and assistants do everything to make the hotel ‘a real home away from home.’” Star-Phoenix, March 9, 1935, page 6.

Main Street, Shellbrook, c. 1945.  Hotel on right. Image source

Prime Minister W.L. Mackenzie King stayed at the Shellbrook Hotel during the May 1945 federal election campaign. King recounted his stay at the hotel in his diary:  “After dinner I went to my room and prepared the outline of a speech … It was like old times to look out of the window and to see motor cars ranged on both sides of the road on which the hall was situated. To hear a band strike up in the distance. I rested a few minutes on my back then went on to the hall, shaking hands with many people on the way.” Click here to read the diary of William Lyon Mackenzie King, May 21, 1945, Library and Archives Canada.   

Hon. Mackenzie King with children in Ottawa, 1942. Image source

Across the street from the Shellbrook Hotel, little Bobbie George, age 4 1/2, took in all the excitement with eyes agog. Bobbie, son of RCAF Sgt. Douglas George, wandered over just as King was turning to re-enter the hotel. “Hello,” said Bobbie with his big eyes. The Regina Leader-Post reported that the prime minister smiled down and asked: “Have we shaken hands?” Bobbie shook his head, and Mr. King shook his hand. “Now you turn around here and make a speech,” Mr. King said. Standing behind Bobbie, the prime minister took the little boy’s arms and waved them to the small crowd on the Shellbrook street corner, saying, “I want you all to go home and tell your parents to vote for Mackenzie King.” The Leader-Post concluded, “Bobbie made a record Monday afternoon for Canadian youngsters – he became the youngest campaigner for Prime Minister Mackenzie King.” Click for story

Shellbrook Hotel, c. 1965. Image source

Shellbrook Hotel, May 2011. Joan Champ photo

Lucien (Lou) and Donna Dupuis bought the Shellbrook Hotel from Floyd Folden in 1978. The following year, they added a steak pit, and then in 1980 they remodeled the guest rooms. The Dupuis undertook a major expansion and remodeling of interior in 1990. A 52- x 20-foot addition was constructed for a banquet room downstairs, a cocktail lounge on the main floor, and three more guest rooms. Dupuis told the Shellbrook Chronicle that the expansion and remodeling was a necessary investment in the hotel. “With the government pricing liquor out of sight, we just had to diversify with more room and in the food area,” Dupuis said. “When we first bought the hotel, a beer was 85 cents – now its $2.40.”

In 2015, the Lou and Donna Dupuis made more extensive changes to the exterior and interor of the Shellbrook Hotel. The building's brick exterior was covered with smooth, brown stucco, and the name of the hotel's restaurant was changed from Luigi's Steak Pit & Ribs to The Railhouse. It continues to offer traditional "bar fare," including steaks, sandwiches, and wings. 

Shellbrook Hotel, April 2006. Joan Champ photo

© Joan Champ 2011

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The Daintrees of Dilke

Eliza Daintree prepares soup in the kitchen of the Dilke Hotel, 1946. Image source

“If you take a knuckle of beef, simmer it four hours, then throw in some barley, diced carrots, turnips, onions, celery, leaves as well, salt and pepper, you’ll have soup, but 10 to one you won’t have soup like Mrs. George Daintree of Dilke makes,” writes Marjorie Jones in her special to the Regina Leader-Post on March 8, 1946. “That’s her recipe for the kind of soup that has made her name a byword to the travelling public and she doesn’t mind giving it to you. ‘But,’ she says, ‘you can’t make a good soup by just having a good recipe.’ The trick is knowing in just what way to put those ingredients together, but she has been at it since she was 17 and she knows.”  Click here for full story

George and Eliza - A Love Story

Eliza Bruce Dewar was born in Scotland in 1884. She started cooking as a kitchen maid as one of 17 servants on a large London estate. At one time, Eliza took lessons from a French chef who taught her the art of sauce making. “There’s really nothing to French culinary,” she told the Leader-Post reporter. “It’s all in the seasoning.”

Sometime between 1900 and 1905, Eliza met her future husband. Charles Hall George Daintree, born in London in 1883, had been a Barnardo boy - one of the hundreds of "Home Children" sent to Canada in the1890s. George worked on a farm at Elkhorn, Manitoba for four years before returning to London to work, first as a driver of a furniture delivery wagon, and then in a pub. Perhaps George met Eliza (whom he affectionately called Isa) while delivering furniture to the home in which she worked, or perhaps they met in the pub. Whatever the case, the two fell in love. George returned to Canada in 1905, first to work on the farm at Elkhorn, and then to Saskatchewan, where he worked at the Bethune hotel. 

In June 1906, George filed for a homestead nine miles north of Bethune. He worked hard to prove up the homestead and once he received the land title in 1909, he sent for Eliza. She arrived in Canada in November 1910, and married the man she hadn’t seen in six years at St. Chad’s Chapel in Regina.

Happy Years at the Dilke Hotel

In 1921, after ten hard years of farming, George and Eliza decided to move to Dilke with their two children, Robert and Gwendoline. One of the greatest hardships the Daintrees faced on the farm was getting their children to school, four miles away at Kedleston on the shores of Last Mountain Lake. With their past experience in food and beverage service, they traded their farm for the Dilke Hotel, owned at the time by W. J. Hepburn.  

The Dilke Hotel, c. 1912. Source: Ploughshares & Prairie Trails (1982)

The two-story Dilke Hotel had been built in 1909 by John Henry Clifford and son who hired a carpenter from England to head the construction. The hotel had changed hands several times before the Daintrees took over the operation. The family settled in and operated both the Dilke Hotel and the general store in the village for forty years.

Gwen (Daintree) Bathgate provides the following account of her parents' experiences running the Dilke Hotel in Ploughshares & Prairies Trails (1982): “Their days were long for there was much to do in serving the travelling public, washing, ironing, bed-making  preparing meals, bread-baking, dish-washing, lamps to fill, [lamp] chimneys to shine and wicks to trim, and a large establishment to keep clean.  Everyone had their jobs to do. Grandfather [Robert Dewar] cranked the washing machine, Grannie [Mary Jane Dewar] ironed, made beds and did dishes; Mother was the cook; Father was the waiter and cashier.” The hotel was steam-heated by a coal furnace, and there was no electricity. Gasoline lamps were used on the main floor; kerosene lamps lit the upstairs. “I remember a table on the landing on which stood sixteen lamps,” Gwen recalls, “ready to be taken to a bedroom. It was a marvel the place wasn’t burnt.” In 1924, George purchased a Delco light plant and had the hotel wired for electricity.

The Dilke Hotel was a busy place in the 1920s.  Source: Plooughshares & Prairie Trails (1982)

Dilke was on the railway line between Regina and Colonsay, and in the 1920s four trains went through the village daily – two in the morning and two at night. Commercial travellers made good use of this train service during the winter. “It was not uncommon in those early years,” Gwen writes, “to see ten or more men, brief cases in hand, parading from the train to the hotel hurrying to the register to get the best room if they had not booked ahead.” If the place was full, a family member might have to give up their room, or travellers would double up. Business grew so much that by 1924 the Daintrees found they could not keep up. The hotel laundry was sent across to the Chinese laundry; later it was sent to Regina. Bread was bought and extra help was hired.

The Dilke Hotel became well known for its hospitality and for Mrs. Daintree’s cooking. “My mother never turned anyone away hungry” recalls Gwen. “Often she had to hurry a meal along for an early customer, or make an afternoon or evening lunch. On two occasions she was asked to feed passengers on a stalled train. Undaunted, she accepted the challenge, called boarders and family to action, brought out the food and went to work.”

During the forty years that the Daintrees ran the Dilke Hotel, it was more than just a place of business. It became a warm and friendly home, not just for the family, but for teachers, businessmen and students. Doctors and dentists used the hotel rooms to see their patients. Miss Marion Kyllo used the dining room for many years to teach piano lessons. Gwen recalls that the kitchen area was the social hub of the hotel. “I remember Mother, Grannie and the Aunties sharing a cup of tea with their friends,” she writes. “In here, too, Mr. Mortin brightened the afternoon once a month when he called to collect the phone bill and tease ‘the girls’ over a cup of tea. There wasn’t private home with a happier kitchen.”

In the fall of 1945, things got tough for Eliza Daintree. Her mother became seriously ill, and this burden, combined with the constant daily routine and Christmas celebrations, taxed her strength. One day in her haste, she tripped over the family’s big St. Bernard dog and broke her shoulder. Gwen and her husband moved in to help with the hotel operations while her mother recuperated for six weeks in the hospital. 

Eliza Daintree with her grandson, Brian Bathgate, and the family dog, Rough, 
on the steps of the Dilke Hotel, 1947.  Source: Ploughshares & Prairie Trails (1982)

The fall of 1945 was also the ninth year that the Daintrees catered to American hunters. George supplied a car for the hunters and either chauffeured them himself or hired a driver to take them to the hunting areas. One fall, the Dilke Hotel hosted seven different groups from the States, including a Virginian had come for seven years i a row to hunt fowl in the district. “They required a lot of attention and kept us busy from three o’clock in the morning until they went to bed at night so we decided not to have that many again,” Eliza told the Leader-Post reporter in 1946. “We have nothing fancy, just plain ordinary cooking, but they must like it,” she said.  

In the 1950s, Eliza’s health began to deteriorate. The Daintrees sold the Dilke Hotel in 1962 and retired to Regina where Eliza passed away in 1967. George became an active member of the Regina Senior Citizen Centre, and married again in 1971. He died in December 1980 at age 97.

After the Daintrees

John and Dorothy Smith bought the Dilke hotel from the Daintrees in 1962. The 26-year-old parents of four children under the age of seven found the experience of moving from Regina into an old hotel in dire need of repair a bit scary. For one thing, the hotel had no sewer or water. With the help of volunteers from the village and area the Smiths renovated the hotel and opened it – complete with a beverage room which opened its doors to women.  The Smiths continued to modernize the hotel over the ten years that they owned it. The hotel changed hands many times between 1972 and present day. 

In 2010, the Dilke Hotel was for sale for $98,000.  By then, there were eight guest rooms on the upper floor with a common bathroom. The rest of the second floor was living quarters for the proprietor. The main floor had a 64-seat bar, a kitchen and office. A 40-seat patio off the bar was used in the summer months.  

Dilke Hotel, October 2011.  Joan Champ photo

The Dilke Hotel, 2008.  Photo courtesy of Ruth Bitner

Dilke Hotel, 2010. Source: Google Street View

 © Joan Champ 2011

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Elkhorn Hotel at Morse

Elkhorn Hotel seen from Main Street in Morse, 1962. Walter Reed photo. Image source

Thanks to Kristine (Montgomery) Flynn for helping me with the research for this article, and for the use of her photographs.

The Elkhorn Hotel at Morse burned down twice before it finally put down roots. Jack Webster built the first Elkhorn Hotel in 1907 directly opposite the CPR station at the corner of Railway and Main. Three years later, in 1910, Webster’s hotel was destroyed by fire. Shortly afterwards, J. A. McAvoy came to Morse and erected the second Elkhorn Hotel which burned down in 1912. McAvoy was undeterred. He rebuilt the third Elkhorn even bigger than before, with steam heating, good lighting and the “finest sample rooms on the line” for commercial travelers.

Elkhorn Hotel, 1913. Image source

The Sodini Brothers - Charles and Brando - bought the hotel from McAvoy in 1913. Originally from Italy then Minneapolis, the Sodinis also owned hotels in Swift Current and Leader, Saskatchewan. While maintaining the good appearance of the Morse hotel, the Sodinis also enlarged the bar and put in a large stock of liquors. According to the Morse News, January 22, 1914, “This stock they kept increasing until it had attained the importance of being as complete a stock as carried by most wholesale houses.” Brando Sodini operated the Elkhorn for 25 years. His obituary in 1938 stated, “Brando, as he was best known by the travelling public and local citizens alike, was a great public-spirited  citizen, always ready to back any civic enterprise that was worthy of a name.”  His funeral service was held in the Elkhorn Hotel prior to the removal of his remains to Minneapolis for burial. Click to read obituary in Leader-Post  

During Prohibition (1915-1924), the Elkhorn Hotel was a place of some ill repute. On November 23, 1918, the Regina Leader-Post reported that the provincial police had raided the hotel at Morse and found several kegs of liquor “of the very worst variety of the Montana make.” Police also found all the necessary items for bottling the stuff in order to do a bootlegging trade. “The whole outfit was taken by the police,” the newspaper states, “and the proprietor [likely Sodini] was brought before the justice of the peace and fined $200 for transporting the liquor and $50 for having the liquor in a public place.”

Things hadn’t improved much by 1934. The Leader-Post reported in August 23^rd that a disgruntled patron, William Bender, upset because he had lost some money in a slot machine at the Elkhorn Hotel, broke into the hotel the next day and stole the offending one-armed bandit. Bender was given a suspended sentence in RCMP court at Moose Jaw, when it was explained that he had returned the slot machine and all the money that was in it to the hotel. Click here to read full story Slot machines were banned in Saskatchewan in 1935.

Ken Doraty, the "Rouleau Flash"

Leader-Post, Apr. 4, 1933

In the early 1940s, the Elkhorn Hotel was owned by NHL hockey great, Ken Doraty. Born in Ontario, Doraty moved with his parents to Rouleau, Saskatchewan, when he was five years old. Doraty played hockey for the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1932 to 1935. Known as the “Rouleau Flash,” Doraty had a couple of major achievements during his NHL career. When the Leafs played the Boston Bruins during the fifth and deciding game of the Stanley Cup Semi-Finals in 1933, Doraty scored the winning goal at the 166:48 mark of the sixth overtime period. Click for full story  At the time it was the longest playoff game in NHL history – a record that has been surpassed only once. As a result of his history-making shot against the Bruins, Doraty was declared a hero of the Toronto-Ranger series. 

Doraty's other big hockey achievement came during a game between Toronto and Ottawa on January 16, 1934. He accomplished the rarest of all hat tricks in hockey history, scoring three goals in seven minutes and 30 seconds during the overtime period (in the days before sudden death overtime).

Knowing that his NHL career was coming to an end, Doraty bought the hotel at Morse in the spring of 1939. He operated the Elkhorn Hotel for a few years, then got into the billiards business in Moose Jaw. He coached the Moose Jaw Canucks in the 1940s, and a Junior Hockey League team that made it to the Memorial Cup finals in 1947.

Elkhorn Hotel, 2011.  Photo courtesy of Kristine Montgomery

On January 4, 2019, Amarjit Singh Dhanju – known to everyone as AJ – bought the Elkhorn Hotel. In addition to a menu of standard bar food, the hotel also offers a full Punjabi (Indian) menu for truck drivers – posted on Facebook. The bar features a pool table, VLTs, and, on occasion, live entertainment – everything from country bands to hypnotists.

An amusing review of the Elkhorn Hotel on TripAdvisor, August 23, 2017, reads: “The building is over a hundred years old, so it is no surprise that the floor in places resembles the hills and dales of the surrounding farmland. If you have a few drinks at the bar and head for the bathroom, you may wonder how many you’ve had as you navigate the floor.”

Elkhorn Hotel, 2011.  Photo courtesy of Kristine Montgomery

© Joan Champ 2011


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"Ladies and Escorts:" Saskatchewan Liquor Laws in the 1960s

“The most unfortunate feature of the present system is the social discrimination against women, who are looked on as incapable of making their own choices.This business regarding women and Indians, more than half the population, as irresponsible, should be ended.”

- Prof. J. M. Naylor, University of Saskatchewan, Star-Phoenix survey on Saskatchewan's liquor laws, May 8, 1958, p. 3 Source

When Jack Morrow and his son John opened the Shell Lake Hotel on November 15, 1957, only men were allowed in the beer parlour. On Saturday nights, while the farmers were enjoying each other’s company in the bar, their wives often had nowhere else to go. The Morrows made a tiny room in the hotel basement available to women where they could visit without disturbing, or being disturbed by, the men. [Pages of the Past: History of Shell Lake-Mont Nebo Districts, 1983, p. 423] There was a long-standing prairie conviction that women and the public consumption of alcohol did not mix. [James H. Gray, Bacchanalia Revisited, 1982] Saskatchewan beer parlours were men-only enclaves until the early 1960s, when provincial liquor legislation permitted mixed drinking in newly christened “beverage rooms.”

The issue of mixed drinking was briefly debated by the members of the Hotels Association of Saskatchewan at their 22^nd annual convention in May 1953. Some felt that allowing women into parlours would create a “more polite” atmosphere and would cut down on drinking in cars. Most, however, were opposed. “If you’re looking for trouble, open ladies’ beer parlours,” one delegate said. Two women hotel operators stated that they felt “that the woman’s place should be in the home and also that they wouldn’t care to look after a woman’s parlour.” In the end, it was decided to leave the decision to “outside organizations.” ["Ladies’ Beer Parlors Discussed by Hotelmen,” in Regina Leader-Post, May 20, 1953, p. 4] Click for source 

Gradually, the case built for more liberal liquor laws in Saskatchewan. Veterans of the Second World War had fond memories of spending a happy hour or two with their girls in English pubs or European bistros. After the war, Canadian women were only permitted to drink with men in Legion halls and private clubs. In 1954-55, Manitoba's Bracken Commission investigated the liquor control system and recommended that all provinces hold plebiscites and let people decide if they wanted to widen drinking provisions, including the opening of public drinking facilities to women. This was welcome news to Norm and Sadie Jacklin, owners of the Climax Hotel close to the US border. Many times an American husband and wife travelling through and stopping at the hotel would have to be discreetly taken aside and told about the Saskatchewan liquor law. [Prairie Wool: A History of Climax and Surrounding School Districts, 1980, p. 35] 

In 1958, calls for mixed drinking increased. Regina Police Chief A. G. Cookson, speaking to the local branch of the Associated Canadian Travellers in March, said that men-only bars encouraged rowdyism and vulgarity. “Inject a little dignity into beer parlours by permitting mixed drinking,” he said. “When women are allowed into the parlours it restricts the activity of men.” ["Police Chief Raps Saskatchewan Liquor Laws; Advocates Mixed Drinking, Special Club Licenses," Star-Phoenix, March 8, 1958, p. 3]  

Liquor Sales Outlet Inquiry 

Throughout 1958, Saskatchewan’s Liquor Sales Outlet Inquiry Committee conducted a short but highly energetic investigation. Guided by the Bracken Commission, its ten members visited liquor outlets in Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and North Dakota, received 40 written briefs and heard 80 oral submissions from various organizations. The brief from the provincial hotels association showed it had softened its position. “Women are capable of looking after themselves,” said association president George G. Grant, “and should be allowed to take a drink along with men if they want to.” ["Hotel Association Brief Advocates Mixed Drinking If Liquor Laws Revised," Star-Phoenix, May 2, 1958, p. 3] On the other hand, Rev. T. E. J. Gibbon, chairman of the Saskatchewan Temperance Federation, expressed strong opposition to women in beer parlours. “There are many nice women who would like to have a drink, no doubt,” he said, “but there are many of the other kind, and it would provide them with a nice, warm office.” ["Temperance Group Gets Thorough Quiz as Liquor Outlet Probe is Launched," Star-Phoenix, May 2, 1958, p. 14]

In July of 1958, the committee released its detailed findings. Click to read full story  Three of the main recommendations concerning Saskatchewan’s liquor laws were:  Beer parlours should be improved; the liquor act should be more strictly enforced; and there should be mixed drinking outlets. During the brief debate in the provincial legislature, Attorney-General Robert A. Walker defined the beer parlour as “an outlet which caters to the lowest common denominator of depravity.” He supported beverage rooms with mixed drinking, believing they would end “the obscene kind of drinking” that is done in beer parlours. ["Bars. Beverage Rooms Debated," Star-Phoenix, March 17, 1959, p. 3] 

Liquor Licensing Act

On April 1, 1959, the Liquor Licensing Act established a process of local options votes whereby licensed dining rooms, cocktail bars, and beverage rooms could be established in Saskatchewan communities. Women were allowed into these new liquor outlets. Regulations required that hotel make renovations to convert their beer parlours into beverage rooms in order to accommodate mixed drinking.  Men-only beer parlours could continue to operate, but no beer parlour licenses would be issued to hotels not already licensed at the beginning of 1959. 

Local option votes were held in 195 Saskatchewan centres in November 1959. Surprisingly, the “dry” sentiment still ran strong throughout the rural areas of the province, and most of these communities voted “No” to the new types of liquor outlets. They would have to wait until 1964 before they could vote on the question again. ["Some Saskatchewan Communities Disapprove of New Liquor Laws," Montreal Gazette, Nov 16, 1959, p. 7] 

Leask was one of the few villages in the province that voted to allow a new liquor outlet in 1959. By February 1960, the Windsor Hotel owned by George Cuelenaere was operating one of the first beverage rooms in small-town Saskatchewan. The beverage room, which could accommodate 150 persons, had been decorated in shades of mocha, rosewood and aqua, with matching furniture. ["First Rural Beverage Room in Operation at Leask," Star-Phoenix, Feb. 11, 1960, p. 14] 

Barmaids 

In 1961, the Hotels Association of Saskatchewan debated a proposal to hire women to serve beer and wine in beverage rooms. At the association’s annual convention, a woman delegate “received a hearty round of applause when she said that especially in smaller places women should be allowed to work in beverage rooms because a wife could then help out her husband.” George B. Stewart, chairman of the provincial liquor licensing commission, expressed concern about what the hiring of barmaids would do to "the breadwinner of the family." “Put yourself in the place of a person who would be displaced by employing a female,” he said. Stewart urged that the hotelmen study the issue more closely before making any recommendation. Stewart was pleased with having women customers, however. “Permitting the ladies in has made for a much happier operation,” he said. “God bless the ladies for that!” ["Waiters May Be Too Costly, Regina Leader-Post, May 18, 1961, p. 4] Click for source Women were finally allowed to serve beer in Saskatchewan beverage rooms in 1965. They were not, however, permitted to serve beer in beer parlours unless they were wives of hotel licensees or unless they were hotel owners and operators themselves 

Improvements Noticed 

Fields of Prosperity: A History of Englefeld 1903-19

In the early 1960s, a study conducted for the Government of Saskatchewan by research psychologists Robert Dewar and Robert Sommer found that the drinking habits of residents in an unnamed small town had changed very little in the two years following the changeover from a beer parlour to a beverage room in the local hotel. “The dire predictions that the new beverage outlet would sharply increase drinking in the community have not been fulfilled,” the authors reported. 

["Opening of New Liquor Outlet Failed to Change Drinking Habits," Star-Phoenix, May 1, 1963, p. 3] Click for source 

A questionnaire distributed to 179 beverage room operators in Saskatchewan by the provincial liquor licensing commission found improvements in the pattern of drinking behavior, stating that the overall trend was to more leisurely drinking. This improvement was attributed to the presence of women “who are more moderate.” [Sask. Drinking Habits Improve, Regina Leader-Post, May 18, 1961, p. 4] Click for source 

In 1962, Stewart told the 31^st convention of the Hotels Association that, prior to the passage of the Liquor Licensing Act three years earlier, “the people of Saskatchewan were the most uncivilized drinkers in the world.” Since then, he asserted, the overall standards of beverage rooms were “magnificent,” saying women had lent the new drinking establishments “an air of decency.” “The Liquor Licensing Commission will be happy when every beer parlour in the province is converted to a beverage room,” Stewart said. ["Act Credited as Drinking Habits Better, Star-Phoenix, May 18, 1962, p. 5]

Mrs. Pauline Sopatyk, Mrs. Olga Wutzke and Mrs. Buzzy Lutzer enjoying a drink in Saskatoon's first mixed drinking beverage room at the Sutherland Hotel, Star-Phoenix, January 6, 1960. Image source

It would take another ten years before the last “Men Only” bars disappeared from Saskatchewan. In the meantime, millions of dollars were spent by the hotel owners of the province making improvements to their guest rooms, dining facilities and licensed outlets. Ab Montgomery, proprietor of the Tisdale Hotel, spent $60,000 enlarging and renovating his facility in 1964. Most of the changes were to the beverage room. Carpet, acoustic tile and inset lighting were installed and a new entrance was constructed. New tables and upholstered chairs were added. [“Hotel Changes Cost $60,000,” Leader-Post, Nov. 17, 1964, p. 2] Joe and Bernie Kaufman, owners of the Ponteix Hotel, began extensive renovations to their beer parlour in 1961 to accommodate the new liquor laws. The result was a more pleasant beverage room that included a fountain, a large aquarium, and carpeting throughout. [Ponteix Yesterday and Today, Volume 1, 1991, p. 345]

Last Men-Only Bastion 

Vic Lynn, proprietor of the Warman Hotel, had to wait until 1972 to have mixed drinking in his establishment. Warman residents had consistently voted against mixed drinking in local option votes. Amendments to provincial liquor laws in 1972 changed the status of beer parlours. Lynn could finally take down the “Men Only” sign and replace it with a "Ladies and Escorts" sign. He had to make a few changes, increasing the seating from 50 to 100 and constructing women’s washroom facilities. The Warman Hotel just north of Saskatoon and the hotel at Marchwell southeast of Yorkton were the last two beer parlours in Saskatchewan that did not allow women to drink in their premises. ["No More ‘Men Only'," Star-Phoenix, May 25, 1972, p. 10]  

Warman Hotel, last bastion of men-only drinking in Saskatchewn. Image source

 

Here's a CBC video from 1972 showing the last day of men-only drinking at the Warman Hotel bar. Source: CBC Archives.

 © Joan Champ 2011