Fred Payton
Prince Albert Historical Society
I wonder what, if any, memories you have about the Avenue Hotel? It was one of several Central Avenue buildings torn down to accommodate the construction of the Forestry Centre, now the Prince Albert campus of the University of Saskatchewan.
I can recall three, somewhat hazy memories of the interior of the hotel. The earliest is of attending a banquet there, sometime in the 1960s. The décor was certainly not memorable, but the food was plentiful and tasty.
My second memory is of visiting a room in which a guest was residing. He had in his possession an item for which he had not paid. The room was small, in fact tiny. The bed, a dresser, and the few other furnishings were crammed together. There was no sign of an “ensuite”.
My final memory was of the licensed premises. As the Director of the Parole Office, I had received information that one of our clients was in the bar, breaking his abstain clause. I accompanied his parole officer on a “walk through”. If the parolee had indeed been in the bar, he had made his exit before we arrived there.
Nothing about these memories impressed me positively with respect to the Avenue Hotel, and it made me wonder why the hotel had been so popular in the early years. This had been the hotel to which John Diefenbaker had brought back his wife Edna from their honeymoon and in which they had stayed awaiting the completion of their new home at 22 – 20th Street West.
It was also the hotel which, upon it becoming available for sale, had led Dr. Edward Trippe and his wife, Catherine, to abandon their plans for the Empress Hotel.
The front portion of the Avenue Hotel was originally built by Dr. P.D. Tyerman. It was opened on December 17th, 1907. In 1908, he sold it to George Dangerfield, who managed it until selling it on to Michael Tynan in 1909. The hotel was heavily mortgaged, and when Tynan defaulted in 1916, the Trippes lost no time in acquiring it from the Great West Life Assurance Company of Winnipeg.
Prior to coming to Prince Albert, the Trippes had lived in British Columbia, where he had been heavily involved in mining. In 1910, he decided to switch from mining to the hotel business. They travelled extensively throughout the province before deciding to settle in Prince Albert and to build the Empress Hotel. Their decision to settle here was primarily based upon their interest in hunting, fishing, and outdoor activities, although they also saw the economic promise of the community.
Patronage at the Avenue Hotel had increased to such an extent by 1917 that the Trippes found it necessary to rent the neighbouring St. Regis Hotel. The upper floors would be used as an annex to the Avenue Hotel, while Dr. Trippe had a number of ideas with respect for the use of its street level floor. This eventually led, in 1932, to Shnay and Tadman moving their business off River Street into that location, where they continued in business until 1957 when Tadman’s son, Sam, moved the business further south and on to the east side of Central Avenue.
According to a report which the Province of Saskatchewan required of all municipalities in 1917 the Avenue had the most accommodation (106 beds) of all of the local hotels, followed by the Merchants Hotel (later the Marlboro and now the Travelodge) at 75 beds.
In the autumn of 1943, the Trippes, who had owned and operated the Avenue Hotel since they purchased it in 1916, announced their retirement and the sale of the business to a consortium of local business men. The Trippes, who had resided in the hotel during their proprietorship, would continue to live in Prince Albert and area during the summer months, but reside in Florida over the winter. They bought a home at 359 – 10th Street East, where they would reside when in Prince Albert, although they spent most of the summer weather at their cottage at Waskesiu or their cabin at La Ronge.
Shortly after the change of ownership, on October 23rd, an advertisement appeared in the Prince Albert Daily Herald announcing that the new owners (so far unnamed) were applying to the Liquor Board for permission to sell and serve beer in the bar.
The new manager for the consortium was Ian C. McLaren who, unlike the Trippes, lived offsite at a house on 20th Street East. McLaren remained the manager until 1950. On August 9th, 1950, an announcement was made regarding a change in ownership and renovations to the hotel. The building would be extended to the city sidewalk, the dining room would be moved to the southeast section of the building, and the lobby to the front portion which had, to that point, been occupied by a barber shop. The beer parlour was to be located in what had been, until then, the lobby of the hotel, as well as modernizing the second floor rooms, adding baths to some. The new owners were W.J. Rosenbaum and Harry Binsky. Rosenbaum had previously operated a hotel in Port Alberni, British Columbia. The new owners had chosen an architectural firm from Manitoba to design the changes.
Rosenbaum and Binsky did not remain owners of the hotel for long. In 1951, another consortium, The Avenue Hotel (P.A.) Limited took over the hotel, with a man named Salaga as manager. In 1961, Leon Roth took over the management of the hotel, overseeing a further renovation in 1966. Another manager, Howard Schenk, was responsible for the final renovation of the building, when the front end was re-modelled.
The Avenue Hotel in 1983.
In the mid-1980s, Alec Lucyshyn became the manager of the Avenue Hotel, staying there until the end of that decade when he moved to the Lincoln Hotel as its manager. Still under the ownership of The Avenue Hotel (P.A.) Limited, Ernest Duby managed the Avenue until it closed for demolition in 2003.
Where Prince Albert’s largest hotel once stood, we now have the Prince Albert campus of the University of Saskatchewan.
