The Prohibition Years: Hotels Struggle to Survive

This is my second blog post about the effects of Prohibition on Saskatchewan hotels. For the first post, click here.

Regina Leader-Post, October 28, 1918

Is it a hotel or a bar? This question being asked today about small-town Saskatchewan hotels, is not a new one. It was being asked back in 1915 at the time Prohibition effectively shut down all the bars in the province.

There was a great deal of anxiety on the part of Saskatchewan’s hotel owners when Prohibition came into effect in the province on July 1, 1915. With closure of the bars, their chief source of revenue was taken away.

June 7, 1915

Dramas large and small ensued. A month before Prohibition came into force, the Saskatchewan Licensed Victuallers’ Association, whose members included 80 percent of hotels in the province, issued a proclamation that all hotels would close as of July 1^st. “It isn’t a case of closing just to be spiteful,” stated Arthur Mason, vice-president of the Association, “but simply because we can’t afford to keep open.” The Regina Morning Leader took the hotel association’s proclamation to task on June 4, 1915, calling it both “a confession and a threat.” “The pretense of these men in the past has been that they existed primarily for the purpose of supplying hotel accommodation to the travelling public and that the sale of liquor was an adjunct to that business,” the newspaper’s editorial claimed. “The hotel men now confess that the hotel was merely a plausible excuse for the bar. They tell us, in effect, that the provision of hotel accommodation for the travelling public was to them a matter of indifference, except inasmuch as it served as a blind to the real motive for which they were in business, which was to reap the maximum of profits from the sale of booze.”

Regina Leader-Post, July 24, 1915

Smaller dramas played out in Saskatchewan’s towns and villages. Prior to the enactment of Prohibition, there were 427 hotels in the province. By April 1917, the government reported that there were 237 places licensed as public hotels. Forty-six hotels had closed in the first three weeks following the banishment of the bars. Others threatened to close.

The Alameda Case

The Alameda Hotel, 1909. Source

In Alameda, for example, hotel owner H. MacHouse closed the town’s only hotel immediately after Prohibition came into effect. It appears that he was attempting to pressure the community in order to gain both patronage and government subsidies. His efforts were successful, at least in the short term. In a letter to the editor of the Alameda Dispatch on July 9, 1915, MacHouse stated that, while he would experience heavy losses as a result of the new law, and that, while, “in my opinion the hotel business without liquor would be a much pleasanter business,” the success of the barless hotel would require the support of the people of Alameda and district. “Where are the people who attended the temperance meeting held in the Farmer’s Hall, Alameda, shortly after the Premier’s announcement?” MacHouse asked. “I wish to say to the public that without their support and cooperation I find it is impossible to keep this hotel open.” On August 6, 1915, the newspaper reported that the newly formed Alameda Accommodation Board agreed to all the terms and conditions submitted by MacHouse, including that only one hotel license be granted in Alameda, and that the town council turn over the licensee (MacHouse) the maximum grants and other concessions provided for hotels by the provincial government. The Alameda Hotel reopened on August 13, 1915.

Ad in Alameda Dispatch, August 13, 1915.

Rest Rooms and Reading Rooms

A major feature of the Hotel Act, passed on June 24, 1915 in conjunction with prohibition legislation, was a provision empowering municipalities to establish rest rooms and reading rooms in hotels. The idea was to give a concession to the hotel owners who had lost their liquor licenses, and to transform the hotels into social centres. In the words of the Saskatchewan Methodist Conference, quoted in the Regina Leader-Post on June 14th,  “Instead of the bar we may have the rest room, the place of clean amusement, the reading room and the respectable homelike hotel.”

Under the Hotel Act, provincial grants were provided to towns and villages with populations under 1000 to help hotel owners maintain these rest and reading rooms “for the convenience and comfort of the general public.” The Public Service Monthly reported that, during the first six months after the bars closed, grant applications were received from 153 municipalities. By the end of 1916, according to the same source, provincial grants had been given for rest and reading rooms in 225 small-town Saskatchewan hotels, totalling $100,416.47.

An article entitled “The New Saskatchewan Hotel” in Public Service Monthly, August 1915, illustrates the provincial government’s hope that the hotels could be converted from saloons to community centres. A strawberry social had recently been held in the Queen’s Hotel in Qu’Appelle, sponsored by the local Red Cross Society. “This occurrence may be regarded as one of the first evidences of the great reform which has been brought about in our province by the abolition of the bars,” the article effused. “The mere fact that such meetings are now possible on premises formerly licensed for the sale of intoxicating liquors must be a cause for rejoicing by all thoughtful people.”

The sale of "temperance" beer was permitted during Prohibition. Kindersley Clarion, September 23, 1915

An Uphill Battle

The transition from bar to social space after Prohibition proved to be an uphill battle for small-town Saskatchewan’s hotels, however. On January 31, 1918, for example, The Landis Record reported that the village hotel was not being patronized to the extent required to pay the bills. “To heat a house of the dimensions of the Landis Hotel, to pay hired help in order to give good service, and to furnish good accommodation, requires considerable outlay,” the newspaper stated. “If the proposition is not a paying one, the community is bound to suffer.” The editorial concluded that, “the hotel being a necessity, it should be patronized by the farming community whenever possible.” On February 4, 1918, the Landis Village Council passed a motion levying one and a half mills on the village assessment for hotel support. 

Government subsidies allowed the hotels to limp along during the Prohibition years from 1915 to 1924, but they were no longer the paying propositions they had been before the bars were abolished.

© Joan Champ, 2019

A Second Look: The Kyle Hotel

The day I stopped to take a look, September 5, 2006. Joan Champ photo.

“Don’t drive by, not every time. Stop for a second look. Look around. Take a breath. It’s later than you think.” These are the words of the late Cam Fuller (1963-2018), a long-time columnist for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, written shortly after a fire destroyed the hotel in Kyle on May 16, 2018. “There’s a lesson for me in the Kyle Hotel fire,” Fuller mused. Perhaps there is a lesson there for all of us. Source

On May 14, 2018, Fuller was driving along Highway 4 between Swift Current and Rosetown. For some reason – a reporter’s curiosity perhaps – he decided to stop for lunch in Kyle, a town he had passed by on that stretch of highway many times. He knew about the statue of the 12,000-year-old woolly mammoth, unearthed at Kyle during highway construction in the 1960s.

“And then,” Fuller wrote, “I can’t even say why, I take a picture of the hotel on the corner — ‘Suites with kitchens, daily, weekly and monthly rates’ — a plain white stucco building with a sign advertising ice for sale, the lettering on the word ‘ICE’ topped by snow.” Two days later, he was shocked to learn that the Kyle Hotel was gone – destroyed by fire – “72 years of history gone in 90 minutes.” 

Some History

“New Hotel is Opened at Kyle,” the headline read in the December 31, 1940 issue of the Regina Leader-Post. “The owners, Hesla Bros., have spared no expense in making this one of the most comfortable hostelries in the province,” the story reads. The hotel had 15 guest rooms, a dining room, and a beer parlour. Lunch was served on opening day, the paper reported, and the hotel’s doors were thrown open for all those who wished to inspect the new building.

Roy and Henry Hesla, sons of Thor and Thea Hesla from Norway, were born in Outlook and grew up on the family farm near Kyle. Roy was the owner/proprietor of the Kyle Hotel for 20 years before moving with his family to Penticton, BC in 1968. The dining room at the hotel was managed by Mr. and Mrs. O. Anderson during the 1960s.

 

Saskatoon StarPhoenix, October 24, 1964.

On October 17, 1964, a bulldozer operated by a road construction crew unearthed the biggest thing ever to hit Kyle - rare fossils of a woolly mammoth determined to be about 12,000 years old. During the subsequent dig that fall, about 20,000 people, including archaeologists, newspaper reporters, and curious spectators flooded into the small town of approximately 500 people. It must have been great time for business at the Kyle Hotel. In 1981, “Wally” the Woolly Mammoth was erected across the street from the hotel as a roadside attraction to commemorate the find. The bones of the woolly mammoth are now housed at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina.

"Wally" the Woolly Mammoth, across Railway Avenue from the former Kyle Hotel. Source

Shortly before it burned down, the Kyle Hotel offered five two-bedroom suites, four modern rooms, and twelve semi-modern rooms – meaning they only had “the basics.” Catering mainly to hunters, the hotel featured a coin-operated laundry, movie rentals, and a walk-in fridge/freezer for game. In addition to beer and spirits, the hotel beverage room had a steak pit, takeout food from the Kyle Cafe, VLTs, and offsale. 

The Fire

At 5:30 p.m. on May 16, 2018, the fire broke out in the Kyle Hotel. Strong winds hampered the efforts of firefighters, and by 8:00 p.m. the building was reduced to ashes.

Fire destroys the Kyle Hotel, May 16, 2018. Source

After the fire, the town’s mayor, Doug Barker told the Leader-Post that the hotel had been a mainstay in the community. “At six o’clock in the morning the men always went down there for coffee,” he said. “Then at 10 o’clock the women all took over.” Long-time Kyle resident and business owner, Wanda Brown, told the newspaper that its destruction was “a terrible blow” to the community. “It’s a meeting place. It’s a gathering place,” she said. “When I was young … that’s where we were all so excited to have our first legal drink.”

So, next time you’re driving past a small town, heed the words of Cam Fuller. Stop in and take a look around. You never know what you’ll find. Or when it might be too late.

In memory of Cam Fuller, a man I never knew, but whose columns I read with relish, and whose writing I greatly respected.

©Joan Champ, 2019

Hotel “Sample Rooms” for Commercial Travellers

Garment salesman in the sample room of a rural Alberta hotel, 1910. Source

In the early 1900s, hotels were an essential feature in Saskatchewan's commercial landscape. The settlers who homesteaded on the prairies had to travel to the nearest village or town to buy provisions such as flour, sugar, salt, tea, and cloth. Storekeepers relied on “commercial travellers” or travelling salesmen to keep their shelves stocked with dry goods. The commercial travellers, in turn, relied on the hotels they stayed in to provide them with “sample rooms” – temporary showrooms where local merchants could view the salesmen’s wares and order goods. The salesmen found the sample room set-up preferable to showing their products in stores where their clients could be distracted by their own customers.

Illustration from "All Things to All Men" by Timothy Spears, American Quarterly, December 1993.

In smaller hotels, sample rooms were often just a spare room furnished with a few tables and chairs. Some hotels had purpose-built sample rooms combining overnight accommodation and display space. Regardless, the commercial travellers came to see this amenity as an indispensable service. Sample rooms remained a fixture in Saskatchewan’s small-town and city hotels well into the 20^th century.

 

Trunks Full of Wares

Commercial travellers went by train prior to the 1950s. When they arrived in a town or village, they hauled their trunks and sample cases to the hotel where they rented both a room and the sample room – if it wasn’t already rented by another salesman. In the evenings, local shopkeepers came to the hotel to see the sample goods and place their orders. The next morning, the travellers boarded the train to the next town, or to return to the city from whence they came.

An article in the February 15, 1949 issue of MacLean’s, McKenzie Porter profiled Bert Thorne, one of Canada’s 40,000 commercial travellers. “For Warwick Brothers and Rutter Ltd., wholesale and manufacturing stationers of Toronto, [Thorne] covers 25,000 miles a year, mostly by train but some by car,” Porter writes. “He books orders for writing pads, cashbooks, paper napkins, gift wrappings, pencils, rulers, erasers, bridge scorers, artists’ water colors, thumbtacks, rubber bands, fountain pens and a few thousand other items from small-town druggists, booksellers and general stores. The biggest order he ever booked was $4,000 worth of Christmas cards, his smallest 25 cents worth of sealing wax.” Thorne travelled with two big trunks containing some 4,000 articles. It took him an hour to unpack the trunks and lay the items out on tables around the sample room before inviting the local storekeeper to view his wares.

Ad in The Simpson Lance, October 31, 1918.

Hotels placed advertisements promising travelling men comfortable accommodations and “good sample rooms.” Sometimes, the accommodation was less than comfortable, with a bare floor and a jug of frozen water by the bed. “One of the mysteries of the commercial traveller,” Frank Phillips wrote in the June 1, 1926 issue of MacLean’s magazine, “is the way he manages to keep spruce and well groomed after a long course of small-town hotels, rising before daybreak to catch a mixed train, bolting a breakfast that will haunt him for the rest of the day, making his toilet minus hot water in a cold, bare room with a distorting mirror and yet emerging from the process neat, clean, smoothly shaven.” 

Illustration from "Couriers of Commerce" by Frank Phillips, MacLean's, June 1, 1926.

The Carnduff local history book recounts that commercial travellers often arrived at the Clarendon Hotel with ten to fifteen trunks full of merchandise. “They carried a sample of each item they sold; fifty different kinds of shirts available meant they carried fifty samples around with them.”

In a story about the Pense hotel in the Regina Leader-Post on March 27, 1943, Arthur Tims recalled the days when he worked as a porter shortly after the hotel was built in 1904. One salesman would tip him a dollar for taking his sixteen trunks from the train to the hotel’s large sample room. “Travellers used to leave shirts in their rooms,” Tims told the paper. “They never came back for them. We kept them for a while, then I’d get the ones that fitted.” 

In 1940, the Government of Saskatchewan passed legislation which, among other things, empowered city, town and village councils to provide sample rooms for the convenience of travellers, and to fix the fees for the use of such rooms.

Changing Times

The economic boom times of the 1920s gave way to the Great Depression, then the 1940s' war-time economy gave way to more boom times in the 1950s. Travelling salesmen were vulnerable in terms of the market’s increasing scale. As Timothy B. Spears writes in the December 1993 issue of American Quarterly, "The rise of mail order houses, the increased importance of branded products, the emergence of corporate selling organizations … and other related factors reshaped the commercial traveller’s professional identity and his role in the marketplace.” Specialization was one strategy adopted by salesmen. Instead of carrying several products and product lines, they would carry just one line which enabled them to make better time between sales calls.

In addition, improvements to Saskatchewan’s roads in the1950s meant that commercial travellers could switch from trains to cars to get from place to place. Unfortunately for hoteliers, automobiles enabled salesmen to move more easily between towns and get home more quickly, cutting into the hotel business. Then, in 1960 when mixed drinking was allowed in Saskatchewan, many hotels turned their sample rooms into beverage rooms. Commercial travellers were not longer hotel-dependent.

© Joan Champ, 2018