Prince Edward Hotel at 100

Brandon’s

a publication of

Originally printed in the Brandon Sun print edition, June 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30, 2012

PRINCE EDWARD HOTELat 100

A VANISHED LANDMARK

In 1980, after years of debate, Brandon tore down oneof the finest buildings ever to grace the city’s skyline:the CNR’s Prince Edward Hotel.

June 2012 would have been the centennial of thehotel’s opening in 1912. To mark the occasion, theBrandon Sun published a five-part history of the‘Prince Eddy’ — and the memories it has left behind.

A new feature was printed every Saturday in June. Theyare compiled here.

• Printed June 2: The railway builds• Printed June 9: Heyday of the hotel• Printed June 16: Decline of a giant• Printed June 23: Debate, then demolition• Printed June 30: Scars left on a city

Much more is collected online, at brandonsun.com/PrinceEdwardHotel and we invite you to share your stories with us there.

By Grant Hamilton

By Grant Hamilton

SPECIAL TO THE SUN

It is hard, now, to imagine thebooming optimism of Brandonin the early 1900s.

The city was in the midst ofa population explosion, asimmigrants flooded through ontheir way to the west. Buildingswere being erected at near-record pace every year.

Railway companies werelaying tracks from coast-to-coast. Brandon wanted toensure that the city wouldn’t bebypassed and would, indeed,be an important divisionalpoint for as many railways aspossible. The “Iron Road” waskey to the city’s futureprosperity and as riches flowedalong it, Brandon believed itselfentitled to a proper share.

So when the CanadianNorthern railway — its freighttrains operating at capacity, itspassenger service in heavycompetition with the CanadianPacific — announced in 1908that it needed to build a new,bigger depot in Brandon, thecompany’s general managerassured the city that it wouldbe “artistic and commodious.”

Over the next couple ofyears, city delegationsconvinced the CNR that whilethe depot was nice, a hotelwould be necessary, too. Andit couldn’t be just any hotel —in fact, they convinced therailway men that their first drafthad been a full two storeys tooshort.

This “first class” hotel —planned to be the “finest in thewest” — initially had a budgetof just $150,000, but the costhad swelled to some half amillion dollars by the time thePrince Edward finally openedits doors in June 1912.

The Grand Opening, a

charity ball that raised $360.50for the Brandon GeneralHospital, was just the first ofmany formal events to be heldin its luxurious rooms, whichwould come to be the high-endsocial heart of the city.

But before the first guest sleptunder its roof, the PrinceEdward Hotel would have tomake it through strikes, delays,shortages — and a Brandoncity council that kept asking thecompany for more, more,more.

It had all started sopromisingly, with the CNRbuying land from the SalvationArmy at Ninth and Princess.They wanted to extend theirtracks from the south end ofthe city (near McTavishAvenue), build a spur linedowntown and build newwarehouses.

The need for a newCanadian Northern depot, too— a big one and soon — wassuch an open secret in the citythat it was included in theJanuary list of 1908 buildingpermits. Confirmation camethe next month.

“The C.N.R. has securedprobably the most desirable sitein the city for the purpose,” theSun gushed, “and intenderecting a building which willbe a credit to the city ofBrandon.”

But both the company andthe city were distracted bywrangling over a Brandonwoman’s injured leg. A Mrs.Annie Ardies, while walkingpast CNR offices on NinthStreet, had fallen through abroken plank in the woodensidewalk.

Her $5,000 lawsuit — aheadline-grabbing amount in1908 — was eventually settledfor $300, but work on the depotwas set back by at least a year.

“By the time that C.N.R.

depot is built it will be time toerect a landing in the upper partof it for airships,” the Sunsnarked.

Then, in February 1909, citymanufacturer John Hanburyupped the ante. In a privatemeeting with CNR officials inWinnipeg, he proposed that therailway add a hotel on to theirplanned-for depot.

Hanbury reported back tothe Brandon Board of Tradethat the company seemedfavourable and the Brandon-boosters at the board of tradesprang into action.

Within a few months, thecity and the company were inheavy negotiations.

The city wanted a biggerhotel; the CNR agreed. TheCNR wanted a 20-year taxexemption; the city said 10 —they eventually split thedifference.

But the sticking point wouldprove to be the railway’sdemands that Lorne Avenue beclosed between Ninth Streetand 10th Street, to allow theirtracks to cross unobstructed.

At a city council meeting inOctober 1909, the city solicitorwarned aldermen that closingthe avenue would require a by-

law and that residents alongLorne Avenue might demandcompensation.

It was felt that the hotelwould be more than worth thetraffic inconvenience, but formonths, city representativestied themselves up in knotstrying to figure out a way tobuild a pedestrian bridge or a“subway” underneath thetracks — all at CNR expense.

When the by-law to closeLorne and fix the taxexemption finally came to acity-wide ratepayer vote, at theend of February 1910, longarticles in the Sun touted thebenefits from giving a little toget a lot.

“To me it almost seemsimpossible to state the value weshall receive by having thishotel in our city,” said actingmayor Francis J. Clark in alengthy speech, much of whichwas published verbatim by theBrandon Sun.

His points resonated: heavyturnout at the polls votednearly all in favour of thebylaw.

But it’s not clear whetherLorne Avenue was everactually closed. Certainly nobridge or subway was everbuilt.

Meanwhile, plans for thehotel were being hammeredout.

Although preliminary depotsurveying had started in spring,1909, the real work was beingdone that summer and fall inmeeting rooms, as the city andthe CNR carried out a verypublic courtship.

A draft proposal had comein October — but cityaldermen wanted to make sureit was good enough to attracthigh-end travellers for theirgrowing city.

“This class of people won’tstay in Brandon,” complainedAld. Clark at a city councilmeeting in 1909, “And why?Because they can’t get first-classaccommodation.”

In fact, he said, they werechoosing Carberry and Virdeninstead!

The railway was quick torespond, coming back in earlyDecember with plans thatshowed the “splendid newhotel … (will) be one of thefinest structures of its kind in

the West.” Even these early plans,

drawn up by Winnipegarchitects Pratt & Ross, showedsome familiar details — a hotelalong Princess Avenue with therailway station stretching southalong Ninth Street. Inside, thefixtures were to be “up to datein every respect.”

There was only one problemfrom the city’s point of view:the plans only called for fivestoreys (which included thebasement) and just 60 to 70bedrooms.

A committee of aldermenhastened to Winnipeg to meetwith the company, emergingfrom a post-Christmasnegotiation with an agreementto expand the hotel by twostoreys, bringing it to an even100 rooms.

Managing to squeeze in ameeting on Dec. 29, 1909, citycouncil agreed, in principle, toclose Lorne Avenue and toexempt the hotel from most ofits taxes.

Over the next few months, alldetails were hammered out infull view of a curious public.The Brandon Daily Sunprinted extensive details of theproposed settlements severaltimes.

The bylaw sailed through acity-wide vote at the end ofFebruary 1910 and manybelieved the hotel would bebuilt by the end of the year.

That wasn’t to be the case.Work in earnest didn’t begin

until June — when anarchitect’s drawing of the$150,000 hotel appeared inprint for the first time.

Continued Next Page

SPECIAL FEATURE • A3SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 2012 • THE BRANDON SUN

Brandon’s


A VANISHED LANDMARKIn 1980, after years of debate, Brandontore down one of the finest buildingsever to grace the city’s skyline: theCNR’s Prince Edward Hotel.

This month marks what would havebeen the centennial of the hotel’sopening in 1912. To mark the occasion,the Brandon Sun is publishing a five-part history of the ‘Prince Eddy’— andthe memories it has left behind.

• June 2: The railway builds• June 9: Heyday of the hotel• June 16: Decline of a giant• June 23: A debate, but demolition• June 30: Scars left on a city

Much more is collected online, at brandonsun.com/PrinceEdwardHoteland we invite you to share your storieswith us there.

RAILWAYBUILDS IN

BRANDONThe Prince Edward Hotel at 100, Part 1

ABOVE: Workers pose on wooden scaffolding during the construction of the Prince Edward Hotel inBrandon in August 1911. The attached train station to the south appears nearly complete. Note “TheBrandon Roller Rink” to the west. (This print is from the S.A. Magnacca Research Centre at the Daly HouseMuseum, but identical prints also exist at the SJ McKee Archives and in the Brandon Sun files)

ABOVE: An architect’s drawing of the proposed Canadian Northern Hotel and Station seen from thenortheast. A version of this sketch was published at least twice in the Brandon Daily Sun: June 3, 1910and again Aug. 14, 1911. (Courtesy the SJ McKee Archives / Brandon University)LEFT: A Sun story touting the deal as done, from Dec. 28, 1909. (Brandon Sun file / Manitobia.ca)

Looking south along Ninth Street, this 1911 photo shows the PrinceEdward Hotel under construction, as well as City Hall and at extremeleft, St. Paul’s Church. (I.C. Barton, courtesy the SJ McKee Archives)

Crews pave Ninth Street north of Rosser Avenue in September 1911 as the Prince Edward Hotel risesin the background. Also in this photo is the King George Cafe, the A.E. McKenzie Building and theClement Block. (Courtesy the SJ McKee Archives / Brandon University)

Brandon is seen in 1892, well before the building of the PrinceEdward Hotel. Looking southwest from Seventh Street and PrincessAvenue, the Salvation Army Citadel (in background, top-right) wasthen on the site of Prince Edward Hotel. Notice then-new City Hallwith tower and opera house. The Beaubier Hotel is on right, nearcentre. (From “The Assiniboine Basin” by Martin Kavanagh)

• Did the hotel’s furniture reallyplummet to the bottom of the north Atlantic?

• Exactly how did a broken sidewalk interfere with hotel construction?

• Who was Prince Edward, and why was the hotel named after him?

PLUS: Browse original sourcematerial, including BrandonDaily Sun articles from the1910s and early photographs.

brandonsun.com/PrinceEdwardHotel

MORE ONLINE:

From Previous Page

Later that month, the CNRboasted that big changes werebeing made to the plans and thereal cost would be $350,000. InSeptember, the estimate wouldincrease to $425,000 — and inthe end it would be counted as$500,000.

A Winnipeg firm — Thos.Kelly & Sons — won thetender that August to put upthe new building, but inOctober it was announced thata Brandon company would geta piece of the action as well.McDiarmid & Clark wouldprovide interior fittings for thestation, which was being“furnished in the most modernstyle and … rushed tocompletion.” The main floorwas to be in oak; the upperfloor in fir.

With good weather in the fallof 1910, the foundation wascompleted in October andbrick-laying began. In fact, bythe following March, thestation was awaiting just itsroof and the company hopedthat occupancy could happenas early as April.

----They missed that deadline,too. In “Brandon: A City,”author G.F. Barker says thedelay was due to “materialshortages, occasional accidents,strike action.”

Material shortages may nothave made the papers, butlabour disputes sure did.Striking workers walked off thejob at least three times duringthe construction of the hotel.

In May, 1911, carpentersstruck. They wanted wages of40 cents an hour — and itturned out that some of themwere only making 30 or 35cents an hour.

It was a short strike — bossescaved before the day was out.

But that was just one earlyepisode in what BrandonUniversity archivist TomMitchell would later writeabout as “a growing militancy(in) the city’s organized labourmovement.”

In November, plasterworkers put down their tools.They were mad that asuperintendent was meddlingin his foreman’s affairs (thesuperintendent had fired anassistant that the foreman hadtaken on).

That was another shortstrike.

But, the following March,just as the hotel was finallynearing completion, carpenterswalked off the job for a secondtime.

They would be off work fornearly a week, asking for anickel-an-hour raise as well assome leniency on filling outtheir paperwork.

Strikes were serious businessat this time — much of the citywas following a murder trialfrom Rivers where a strike-breaker was accused of killinga hotel porter during a brawlwith striking workers. (He wasacquitted, but later admittedthe shot. )

There was nothing quite sodramatic in the Prince Edwardcarpenters’ strike, but the Sundid follow its twists and turnsfor several days. In the end, theworkers didn’t get their raise,but the company did agree tolet them get away without fullyitemized time sheets.

Despite the labour strife,there was good news, too: TheCNR continued to rapidlyexpand and Brandon wasnamed a new divisional point— it meant more workers anda bigger payroll and it meantcompany president WilliamMackenzie was back in the city.

“He made a thoroughinspection … and pronouncedhimself delighted with thework on the new hotel anddepot,” wrote the Sun.

In August, swept up in thesentiment of Coronation Year,the company announced thatthe hotel would be named the“Prince Edward,” after the sonof the new King George V.

At the time, it was expectedthat the hotel would be able toopen in January, to usher in1912.

That was still the officialword as late as October, whennews reports said thatcompany officials were in townto make arrangements for the“finishing touches” on the newhotel.

The attached depot, itselfhaving taken longer tocomplete than hoped, finallyhad workers move in for earlyNovember and although thefirst floor depot still wasn’tdone, the upstairs offices had“ample space” for “the very

large staff.” The company pushed back

the hotel’s opening date againnear the end of the year, settinga new target as March 1912 atthe same time they announcedthe hiring of J. EdwardHutchinson as the first hotelmanager.

He had an approved railwayhotel pedigree.

“Hutchinson,” the Sunnoted, “has been assistantmanager of the RoyalAlexandra [in Winnipeg] for aperiod and later held the sameposition in the Empress Hotel,Victoria.”

The promised March datepassed, again, without an openhotel.

Finally, on June 1, 1912, theBrandon Daily Sun publisheda lengthy, detailed look at thenew hotel: “Today the newC.N.R. hotel, which it is hopedwill prove one of the city’s bestassets, opens its doors for thereception of guests,” the Sunwrote.

“Right up to last night werean army of employees busyputting on finishing touches tothe elaborate interiorappointments.”

The Prince Edward was aroaring success from the start.

The opening gala, held June12 as a hospital fundraiser, wasdeemed “brilliant” in newsaccounts:

“Brandon’s new handsomehostelry, the Prince EdwardHotel, was the scene of one ofthe most brilliant gatherings inthe history of the Wheat Citylast evening … in celebrationof the opening of the splendidstructure.

“Never before has such abrilliant scene been witnessedin this city. The sumptuoussurroundings provided asplendid setting for just amagnificent affair.”

Even more ink was printedabout the fashion of theevening. Just a few ladiesfeatured in the Sun were:

“Miss Pieling, very prettygown of yellow satin withcrystal trimmings; Mrs.Hanbury, gold embroideredgown of crepe metior; MissWares, the debutante of theevening looked charming in acream satin dress with pearltrimmings, carrying a bouquetof roses.”

The men would get their turna couple of weeks later, ashundreds of Winnipegfinanciers came on a specialtrain to the new hotel. Brandonwas ready for its close-up:

“A huge banquet (will beheld) at the new Prince Edwardhotel … and speeches will bemade bearing upon theprosperous outlook forBrandon,” wrote the Sun.

“The citizens are asked todisplay bunting on both daysand make the appearance of

the city especially bright andattractive.”

It worked. The hotelimmediately focused attentionon Brandon as a city growingin both size and importance.

The Winnipeg Saturday Postpublished lavish photos of thehotel’s interior. The ManitobaFree Press said that it showedhow much confidence theCNR had in Brandon:

“This hotel is one worthy ofa city of 50,000. Brandon’spopulation is 16,000.”

Less than a year after thehotel’s triumphant opening, itseemed briefly that theimposing edifice would be justthe start of something evenbigger.

“Prince Edward Hotel MayHave To Be Enlarged,” was theheadline in April 1913.

“This palatial building hasbecome so popular withtravelling salesmen that … therooms are packed,” the Sunwrote, noting that the PrinceEdward had had to requisitionspace at other city hotels to dealwith the overflow.

“It is known that the buildingwas constructed so as to permitof another two storeys beingadded, and the possibility ofthis move being carried out ismade a probability.”

But it was not to be. The FirstWorld War was just around thecorner.

NEXT WEEK:

Tough times for the city,but the heyday of the hotel

DELAYS FORGOTTEN AS HOTELCELEBRATES BRILLIANT OPENING

Brandon firefighters show how high their ladder will stretch up the side of the Prince Edward Hotel inthe early 1910s. This photo is taken from the east side of the hotel, facing Ninth Street. PrincessAvenue is at the right of the image. (Courtesy S.A. Magnacca Research Centre, Daly House Museum)

The hotel’s construction wasslowed by at least three strikes— serious business, at the time.(Brandon Sun file / Manitobia.ca)

Extensive details of the hotel’s Grand Opening gala were printed inthe next day’s paper, including details of every lady’s gown. (BrandonSun file / Manitobia.ca)

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By Grant Hamilton

As the social, cultural andphysical heart of the city,Brandon’s Prince EdwardHotel was, quite literally, aplace where people cametogether.

And Sandra Armstrong isliving proof of one particularlyromantic example.

Armstrong, now a librarianat the Brandon Armourymuseum, says that her parentsmet while they were bothworking at the Prince Edward,in the early 1930s.

Her father Bill Armstrongwould have been a youngbellhop when he first spottedthe woman who wouldbecome his bride. She was acouple of years older than heand working at the hotel’snewsstand.

It seems that Bill was almostdestined to have something todo with the Prince Edward.Born in 1912, the same year thehotel was completed, heemigrated as an infant with hisparents from England toBrandon — arriving in the citywithin weeks of the hotel’s galagrand opening.

He worked at the PrinceEdward for several years, beforethe war, meeting and marryingMuriel Mason in the mid-30s.

Their daughter remembersthat they stayed close with co-workers from the hotel foryears afterwards.

But although they becamefriends with other hotelemployees, there wasn’t much

mingling with the guests,Sandra says.

At that time, she says“people who could afford tolive there thought ofthemselves as a different class.They were people with money...

“They would see the otherside of the hotel,” Sandra says.“They would see people alldressed up, coming in forfunctions, but they would alsosee the kitchen.”

For staff and for guests, thePrince Edward Hotel was anisland of class and tranquilityin a sometimes-troubled city.

It had been built during afrenzied period in Brandon’shistory.

The city’s population wasbooming and so were itsbuildings. Construction permitsspiked from $350,000 in 1909to nearly a $1 million in 1910,rising again in 1911 and 1912to a record high of $1.2 millionthe year of the Prince Edward’sopening.

During that time, some ofthe city’s biggest and best wereconstructed. Not only thePrince Edward Hotel, but areplacement Brandon Hospitalfor Mental Diseases (now theAssiniboine CommunityCollege’s North Hill campus),the McKenzie Seeds buildingon Ninth Street, Knox Churchat the corner of VictoriaAvenue and 15th Street and thenow-gone St. Michael’sAcademy at First Street andVictoria Avenue and thedowntown Clement Block.

It was a boom that wasn’t tolast.

As the world convulsed itselfinto the Great War, buildingpermits in Brandon collapsedto just $36,000 in 1915. Theywouldn’t again hit a milliondollars a year for decades.

After the war, the Roaring ’20swere no kinder to Brandon.

The city buckled underfinancial pressures, verging onbankruptcy and eventuallyhiring a city manager to cut thedeficit.

Even the Prince EdwardHotel — the city’s premierestablishment — was sometimesin the red. Although it was a finebuilding, it wasn’t always aprofitable one. In fact, in 1939,the CNR announced that thehotel had lost the companymore than $8,000 — equivalentto a $130,000 deficit today.

But, as the Sun would laterwrite, “The Prince Edward wasborn in an age when serviceand courtesy took precedenceover speed and profits.”

Brandon historian LawrenceStuckey — himself a bellboy atthe hotel in the early 1940s —says that it was a lessoningrained in employees fromthe start.

“When you were hired at the

Prince Edward, two principleswere explained,” he wrote laterin his memoirs. “1. You wereworking for Canadian NationalRailways, as an integral part ofits services and 2. Personalservice was not menial, but infact a very honourableprofession.”

Employees of the hotel,Stuckey says, would go out oftheir way to ensure the comfortof their guests.

“Some requests wereinteresting, but we wereresourceful … Some large tipswere suspected of being hushmoney, which was notnecessary as we rigidlyfollowed the rule of the threemonkeys.”

More than 50 years later,Stuckey continued to keephotel guests’ secrets, althoughhe wasn’t above droppinghints.

“I could tell interestingstories ... like the professionalsafe-cracker,” he said. But ofcourse, he stayed discreet.

With employees sodedicated, it was no wonderthat, even when circumstancesconspired against the hotel, itacquitted itself with grace.

A massive railway strike in1950 — shutting down freightservice on the eve of theKorean War — sent hotelemployees out to the picketline. After all, they worked forthe railway, too.

Guests and managementtook it in stride.

“They’re making their ownbeds, but they seem to like it,”hotel manager H.L. Morgantold the Sun. Managers wererunning the switchboard andthe union “made someprovision for elevator service,”the paper wrote.

A week and a half later,when the strikers were orderedback to work by the federalgovernment, the Sun noted thatbreakfast was served at the hotelfor the first time in 10 days.

Breakfast seems an odd detailto note, until it’s realized that atthe time, the Prince EdwardHotel was just about the onlyestablishment in town to servefull restaurant meals.

It also had “that railroadsilver and the railroad linen,adding to the feeling ofgrandeur that went with hoteleating,” remembered Sunassociate editor Garth Stouffer,years later.

Elegance was an important

draw for the hotel.Blue-blooded guests

included, in 1919, the veryPrince Edward that the hotelhad been named after.

Throngs had also filled thestreets shortly after the hotel’sopening, for the Duke ofConnaught, then Canada’sGovernor General and fatherof Princess Patricia.

The Earl of Athlone andPrincess Alice slept at the hotel,as did Viscount Alexander ofTunis. It was speculated thatLord Tweedsmuir may havewritten some of his JohnBuchan prose at the PrinceEdward’s desks.

The Duke of Devonshire,Viscount Willingdon of Rattonand the Earl of Bessboroughrounded off the list of viceregalvisitors.

A number of notablepoliticians also stayed at thePrince Edward. William LyonMacKenzie-King may havebeen the first sitting PrimeMinister to visit, but R.B.Bennet and Louis St. Laurentsoon followed. Their privaterailway cars waited for them inthe station.

Entertainers like dancer SallyRand, pianist Jan Cherniavski,mezzo-soprano GladysSwarthout and actress GracieFields were some of the otherfamous faces who stayed at thePrince Edward.

(Continued next page)


‘Prince Eddy’ at 100, Part 2

Decades of dominance for Brandon’s best hotel

Brandon College:Memories of Grad ’37

Brandon’s



This month marks what would havebeen the centennial of the hotel’sopening in 1912. To mark the occasion,the Brandon Sun is publishing a five-part history of the ‘Prince Eddy’ — andthe memories it has left behind.



Many changes to the city skyline since glory days of downtown

The Prince Edward Hotel takes central billing in this 1913 panoramic photograph of downtownBrandon. The photo, used as the cover for a promotional booklet about the city, appears to have

been taken from atop the McKenzie Seeds building — one of the few from that era that stillremains standing in Brandon’s downtown. — Davidson & Gowan / Courtesy Kenneth Jackson

The Prince Edward Hotel stood proudly in the middle of this sky-line scene from a Brandon postcard, seen from across the Assini-boine River. — Terence J. Fowler Photography / Courtesy

the Brandon General Museum and Archives, Inc.

T he Prince Edward Hotel is partially hidden behind trees.Compare their size in this photo to the postcard at the top-rightof the page. — Terence J. Fowler Photography / Courtesy

the Brandon General Museum and Archives, Inc.

The private dining room at the Prince Edward Hotel, seen herein about 1912, shortly after it opened.

— Photo courtesy the SJ McKee Archives / Brandon University.

An early postcard of the Prince Edward Hotel, with the Canadian Northern depot attached at the rear of the hotel.— Valentine & Sons Publishing / Courtesy the Brandon General Museum and Archives, Inc.

For many years, collegegraduation in Brandonmeant a banquet dinner atthe Prince Edward Hotel.

It was one of the fewvenues in the city largeenough for such a gatheringand it was certainly the onlylocation classy enough.

In 1937, Brandon Collegearts graduates preparing toenter their post-collegiatelives spent a celebratoryevening in the PrinceEdward’s dining room,feasting on roast larded beeftenderloin, chateau potatoesand giant peas au buerre.

There was a full menu ofspeeches and entertainmentas well — each accompanied

by a bon mot quotation.Samuel Johnson was

selected to accompany atoast to the graduating ladies:

“I like their beauty, I like theirdelicacy,

I like their vivacity, and I liketheir silence.”

The S.J. McKee Archivespreserves a few remainingcopies of the program fromthat evening. Some weresigned by friends and fellowgraduates, like yearbooks aretoday.

Not recorded is what theladies chose for a juicy retort.

Flip through images ofthe program itself, online.

Up to 30,000 peoplewere expected, along withnine bands and a 300-voicechoir. Featured would begames of softball, lacrosseand horseshoe pitching —then an international tug-of-war.

A plane would take offfrom a brand-new strip,taking visitors on aerialtours. Two special traincoaches were deliveringguests and special buseswould be taking a freshly-graded gravel road fromBoissevain. A dozen nurseswere on standby in a first-aid tent.

It was 1932, theInternational Peace Gardenwas being dedicated — andit all kicked off at the PrinceEdward Hotel.

Read the whole story,including archives fromthe time, online.

A gardenfor peace

(Continued)

Stuckey says he rememberedSwathout in particular.

“She charmed me out of mysocks,” he wrote in his bellhopmemoirs.

Staying late after his shift,Stuckey made sure the operastar had what she needed fromthe kitchen and told her heenjoyed her records, “whichseemed to surprise her.”

He left with a $5 tip from hermanager and what he called his“finest memory of the PrinceEdward.”

But it wasn’t all glamour.Stuckey says that in the early’40s, there was open racism atthe hotel.

“A famous American negrosinger had to stay at theBrandon Hotel,” Stuckeywrote, “because the PrinceEdward would not admit him.”

In several columns for thenewspaper, Brandon Sun editoremeritus Fred McGuinnesswould recall an attemptedexpulsion of a different sort.

“In the early 1930s, Brandonhad a young woman of easy(perhaps limited) virtue,”McGuinness remembered.“She was a favourite of thetravelling salesmen whoworked and lived in the samplerooms. When he could standthe sight of her no more, Ernie(Langevin, the hotel’s chiefclerk) one day told her never todarken the door again.

“However, this was anenterprising young miss. Afterher banishment from the frontdoor she began using the backentrance. Once inside, shecould slip down the stairs to thebasement, ring for the elevator,and wave at Ernie as she passedthe main floor.”

In its day-to-day life, the hotelwas filled with conventions,banquets and weddingreceptions.

The Kinsmen, the Knights ofColumbus, even the Stanley

Park lawn bowling club, allheld their meetings at thePrince Edward Hotel.Sometimes, they welcomeddistrict or provincialconventions.

And the hotel was a naturalchoice to host even biggerevents — such as a celebratorykickoff banquet the nightbefore the 1932 inaugurationof the International PeaceGarden.

“It was probably the mostnotable gathering of its kindever held in the city,” the Sunsaid the next day. The PrinceEdward had been so“cramped” with honourablemen that the women’s banquethad to be relegated to the CecilHotel.

For decades, the hotel tradedon that air of exclusivity,occupying such a central placein Brandon that it seemedimpossible for it to ever beotherwise.

But the end would comemore swiftly than anyone couldimagine.

Without notice, in 1975 thePrince Edward would suddenlyshut its doors.

NEXT WEEK: A once-proudhotel slides into decay


• See the graduation menu fromthe hotel in 1937.

• How the country — and thePrince Edward — coped duringthat massive railway strike.

• Read Lawrence Stuckey’s fullmemoirs of being a bellboy inthe early ’40s.PLUS: Browse original source

material, including mid-centuryBrandon Sun articles and photographs of the hotel.


MORE ONLINE:

Crowds throng Princess Avenue in Brandon to see the GovernorGeneral of Canada, HRH the Duke of Connaught, during hisvisit to Brandon on Oct. 24, 1912. Note the people on the roof of

the Prince Edward Hotel to catch a glimpse of the Governor Gen-eral, including one man who was standing at the corner of thetop-most ledge. — SJ McKee Archives / Brandon University

Two views of the hotel’s sumptuous interior, taken shortly afterits opening, including the Royal Suite (at left) and the Rotunda

(at right). The hotel’s glamour would last for years, linger evenlonger, and is remembered still.

— Clark J. Smith / SJ McKee Archives, Brandon University

Tough time forcity, heydayfor Prince Eddy

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Class proceeding lawsuits have been initiated across Canada in relation to the ingestion and/or purchase of Vioxx.

A national settlement agreement that settles all litigation in Canada relating to Vioxx hasbeen reached and hearings have been scheduled to seek approval by the courts.

The Defendants, while not admitting liability, will pay a sum of approximately$33,112,500, subject to a possible increase to up to $36,881,250 or decrease to no lessthan $21,806,250, depending upon the number of eligible claims filed.

Eligible claimants who had an ischemic stroke (or their estates) will receive a paymentof no more than $5,000. The size of payments to eligible claimants who had a myocardial infarction or sudden cardiac death (or their estates) will be based on the number of approved claims and other factors, including length of duration of use ofVioxx and risk factors including age, smoking, high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, family history, alcohol or drug abuse. Spouses and children of eligible claimants who had a myocardial infarction or sudden cardiac death may also beeligible for settlement payments.

If you, your spouse or parent, or a deceased person for whom you are the personalrepresentative took Vioxx and then experienced a heart attack (myocardial infarction),sudden cardiac death or ischemic stroke, you should immediately review the full legalnotice in this matter to ensure you understand your legal rights, including your rightsto participate in the hearing at which Class Counsel will seek approval of the settlement.A copy of the full legal notice can be viewed at www.vioxxclassactionsettlement.cafrom the Administrator who can be reached at 1-888-507-8759 or from Class Counselat www.vioxxnationalclassaction.ca who can be reached as follows:

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Michael J. Peerless Tel: 1.800.461.6166 (toll free)Fax: 1.519.672.6065Email: [email protected]

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Grant J. Scharfstein Tel: 1.306.653.2838Fax: 1.306.652.4747Email: [email protected]

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Prince Edward Hotel—3

The decline and closure of a giantBy GRANT HAMILTON

Sun Staff Writer

When the Prince EdwardHotel shut its doors for the lasttime, on Jan. 29, 1975, it cameas a nasty surprise for Brandonsenior Roxy Cosgrove. Apermanent resident of thehotel, who had lived there forfive winters, she had justlearned that she would behomeless.

The hotel, broke, hadentered receivership. About 78employees were laid off —with no severance pay.Reservations for three sportsteams coming in fromLakehead University werecancelled.

And Cosgrove was spittingmad.

“I don't know which way tolook. Just one day to get out,”Cosgrove told the Sun. “I'm acrippled old lady in awheelchair. I didn’t think theycould do this.”

The hotel manager himselfonly had a couple days’warning of the actual closure.But John McFarlane admittedhe’d long known the hotel’sfuture was shaky.

“I was given orders just tokeep things together until itcould be sold,” saidMcFarlane, who had managedthe hotel for four years. “It hasbeen for sale for some time. Iknew this when I moved toBrandon.”

The hotel was in direfinancial straits.

It reportedly owed $445,000on its non-fixed assets, plus

there was a $55,000 mortgageon the depot portion behindthe hotel, then being run as theRed Caboose nightclub, whichwas also to be closed.

The hotel also hadn’t beenpaying its taxes. Property taxesalone had been in arrears forthree years and the bill was$180,000. Unpaid businesstaxes reportedly raised thatamount closer to $300,000.

That brought the total owingto $800,000 — the equivalentof nearly $3.5 million today.The business simply wasn’tmaking enough money to payits bills.

“As a hotel, it is obsolete,”said Don Penny, a Brandonaccountant who was acting asa local agent for the court-

appointed receiver. “It’s tooold. People don’t go to oldhotels.”

Too old and obsolete, it wasalso, at that time, unwanted —repeatedly offered for sale, tono buyers, the city wouldeventually take reluctantownership through tax arrears.

It was quite a comedown forthe once-proud giant.

Perhaps the first sign of thePrince Edward Hotel’seventual demise could havebeen spied as far back as 1955.

Certainly, in the mid-’50s therailway hotel was still at thepeak of its glamour and wasthe undeniable centre ofBrandon society, but it wasalso no longer the asset it oncehad been. The CanadianNational Railway, receiving anunsolicited bid for some of itsproperties, decided it was timeto move on and put it on themarket.

The Prince Edward was soldas part of a package — twohotels and two resorts — to asyndicate headed by Walter F.Thorn of Moose Jaw, Sask.

The syndicate, variouslyknown as T and A Hotels orA-T Hotels, paid $915,000 forthe four properties, whichincluded Brandon’s PrinceEdward, the Prince ArthurHotel in Port Arthur, Ont.,Minaki Lodge on Lake of theWoods and Pictou Lodge inNova Scotia.

It was a steal of a deal — somuch so that it caused a minorflap in Parliament. AWinnipeg MP claimed thatMinaki Lodge alone couldhave been sold for $2 million.

On the whole, though, itseemed at the time like goodnews. The new owners pledgedto maintain the hotel’straditional high standard ofservice and efficiency.

And Walter Thorn turnedout to be a former resident ofthe city.

“I’ve always liked Brandon,”Thorn said as he announced aseries of modernizations to thePrince Edward.

Plans included getting rid ofstaff quarters on the top floorto make room for more guestrooms and a complete update

of the plumbing.“A coffee shop is planned for

the west side of the basement,”which would replace theformer sample rooms, the Sunwrote of the plans. Also, “therewill be a lounge or waitingroom, an up-to-the-minutelunch counter.”

Just a few years later, as thePrince Edward celebrated its50th anniversary, Brandon waspreparing for 30,000 visitors tocrowd the city for the 1963Brier curling championships.And the Prince Eddy’s newowners unveiled even morerenovations.

“The austere formality ofthe high ceilings (in the foyer)has been replaced by a neutralcolour … lighting broughtdown to a 12-foot level,” theSun wrote. “Two new banquetrooms have been added on thefirst floor,” one replacing aformer sitting room reserved“for elite guests.”

The hotel boasted that eachof the rooms now had a fullbath or shower. As well, roomrates had been dropped andfood charges “have remainedwithin the moderate pricerange.”

And despite all the work

they’d already put into it, Tand A Hotels said they weren’tdone yet.

To help mark the hotel’s 50thanniversary, new flooring, afront-door facelift and a newparking lot were all proposed.Most stunningly, “sometime inthe future, a swimming pool isplanned on the lower level.”

Years later, not all of thechanges were rememberedkindly — she was “choppedup,” wrote Sun associate editorGarth Stouffer in 1975. But atthe very least, money wasbeing invested in the upkeep ofthe hotel; the owners had afuture planned for it.

That wouldn’t be the case formuch longer.

In fact, the Prince EdwardHotel was about to begin aslow, inexorable slide that

would eventually threaten toput Roxy Cosgrove out on thestreets, embroil the city in bitterfights and finally, lead to thehotel’s demolition.

Reading between the lines,decades after the fact, it’spossible to discern a whiff ofdesperation in the hotel’sadvertising.

In its early years, the PrinceEdward hardly even deignedto advertise. That changed afterT and A Hotels took over.

Soon, more ads began toappear. Then, they got largerand more prominent. Theimplications were clear — thehotel was having trouble fillingits dining room seats.

Through the 1960s, the adsbegan to turn gimmicky.

(Story continued on Page 4)

One sad signJohn Halliday, well-known maitre d’ of the Prince Edward Hotel, holds the sign that marksthe closure of the hotel. Jan. 29, 1975.

A second sad signAt the same location, in a 1979 echo of the photo at top-right, a sign reading “Jesus saves,Devil destroys” has been nailed to the boarded-up front door of the Prince Edward Hotel.

The Prince Edward Hotel provided this photo of itself onpostcards in the late 1960s. “Stay at ‘the Big One’” readthe back.

Brandon’s






Advertisements, like this one in the 1972 HendersonDirectory, were unnecessary in the hotel’s early days. Inthe years before it closed, the hotel dramatically rampedup its promotional efforts.

A front view of the Prince Edward Hotel in 1968, when itwas a CAA-approved lodging , about to play host to aManitoba Chambers of Commerce meeting.

Sun file photo by Dirk Aberson

Photo by Joe Fartak, courtesy BrandonGeneral Museum and Archive

Sun file photo

Sun file photo by Dirk Aberson


Out with the old,in with the new

in brief

The Prince Edward Hotel wasn’t the only historicBrandon building threatened by progress during that era.

A needed housing complex was built at Fifth Streetand Lorne Avenue. But until March of 1977, that cornerwas once home to the finest frame house in Manitoba:Hanbury House.

For decades, Hanbury Manufacturing was one ofBrandon’s biggest employers, although, like all bigcompanies, the company had its detractors — especiallyin the Duck Mountains, where much of Hanbury’stimber rights were located.

“Old-timers of that area recall with hate the name ofHanbury,” wrote Kaye Rowe in a 1977 Brandon Sunfeature. “He was the man whose crews denuded a widelandscape of its trees.”

But the lumber baron, who also owned a mill to turnthe trees into windows and doors, certainly had abeautiful home.

The 14-room house was noted for its delicate woodcarving over the porticos, with matching work on theveranda and fence.

A giant fireplace dominated the living room, withanother fireplace in the master bedroom. The butler’spantry was elegant in panels of fine wood and stained-glass partitions. The den to the right of the main entrancehad been an office, music room and nookery wherechildren could play quiet games or read.

The grounds, too, were immaculate, and used for lavishentertaining or for games of croquet.

The home, however, passed out of the Hanbury familybefore the Second World War. It was rented out, usedby the Salvation Army to house visiting wives andmothers of service personnel. Then, it was carved upinto small apartments.

And then it was demolished.

(See online for more on both these stories.)

Hive of villainy?The Red Caboose was a popular pub in the final few

years of the Prince Edward Hotel, but it wasn’t justpopular among people looking to tip one back.

For a while, police say, it was also the hub of Brandon’slargest marijuana distribution system.

Mounties busted the drug gang on Valentine’s Day1974, arresting the leader and a trio of sidekicks.

It was, at the time, the RCMP’s largest-ever undercoveroperation in Manitoba.

At the sentencing, court heard that the 21-year-oldringleader was already out on parole for narcoticsoffences — and he bragged about it as he sold moredrugs.

In fact, he even managed to fit in routine visits to hisparole officer while also pushing pot.

Unfortunately for the criminals, some of those saleswere being made to undercover police officers.

RCMP say their officers bought an ounce of marijuanathree times and once managed to buy a whole pound,before they made their arrests.

One man got a five-month sentence and another twoaccomplices were each sentenced to 18 months for theirroles in the sales.

The leader was walloped with a five-year sentence.The Red Caboose wouldn’t be there when he got out.

(Continued from Page 3)

A “Smile” campaign — thehotel’s slogan for several years,the word itself drawn with anupward curve to look like amouth — offered free lunchesto people caught grinning by asurreptitious photographer.

Full pages in the BrandonSun were devoted to ads thatsnaked around the articles,forming a large “P” and “E.”

With trains no longerdelivering distinguished guestsright to its door, the PrinceEdward needed advertisingstunts and other attractions todraw people in.

One of the later (and better-attended) attractions was abeverage room — the RedCaboose.

Attached to the PrinceEdward, in the old CNR depotto the south, the mayor was onhand to cut the ribbon in 1971.

“The interior decor followsa railroad theme,” wrote theSun in a review, “with a replicaof a ‘colonist car’ and a clubcar on each side, with aplatform in the centre.”

It would be open for justthree years, attracting localbands, fair-week events and aseries of hit-and-runs in itsparking lot.

But the rollicking nightclubalso attracted an unsavouryelement — a major drug bustin 1974 fingered the RedCaboose as the centre of themarijuana trade in Brandon.

Meanwhile, business at thehotel was winding down.Rooms were sitting empty.Less-profitable permanentguests moved in. Some spaceswere rented out forinstitutional use.

And the debts had begun torelentlessly stack up.

So, when the doors finallyclosed for the final time onJan. 29, 1975, it was a surprise.And yet, it wasn’t.

“The news,” opined aBrandon Sun editorialist thenext day, “is enough to makea strong man weep …. [But]the essence of every businessstory is found in its economics,and here the hotel found itselfout-paced by others.”

“The fact that this is a signof growth and progress doesn’tlessen the shock, the shock onealways feels when an old friendpasses away.”

One of those old friends, theput-out-on-the-street RoxyCosgrove, eventually woundup at Fairview Home.

Service clubs and sportsteams and banquet organizers— and coffee klatches — alsofound other locations to meettheir needs.

Within days, the buildingwas advertised for sale —$250,000 the asking price.

It was, of course, not the firsttime in recent years that thehotel had been on the block.

In a 1970 letter to citycouncil, a Winnipeg real estateagent wrote, “We have for salethe Prince Edward Hotel andalso the CNR property whichis now on option to the presentowners of the hotel.”

There were no takers then.As late as December 1974,

just a month before the hotelwas shuttered, there wererumours that a Winnipeg firmhad been nosing around withits eye on the hotel and hadplans to renovate it, but thatdeal fell through.

This time, though, the pricewas rock-bottom. Buyerswould get a six-storeystructure, rich in history andlocated on prime real estate inthe city’s core — then stillBrandon’s most desirable retailsector.

“For a quarter of a millionbucks ... the community couldhave quite a centre for manythings,” associate editorStouffer wrote in a column,musing on the possibilities ofrenovation.

Unfortunately, that moneywould only buy the buildingitself. To pay off the debts thathad forced the hotel’s closure,everything inside was about tobe auctioned.

Billed as “Brandon’s BiggestAuction,” the three-day sale atthe end of March disposed of“antique furniture, originalhotel furniture, lamps, beds,tables, utensils, bedding, chairs,hundreds of articles toonumerous to list.” It was sopopular that they charged $1admission.

In short, the hotel had beenclosed for less than twomonths and it had alreadybeen looted.

Seeing the writing on thewall, the city madearrangements to assumeresponsibility for heating andpower at the hotel. Crewsboarded up the doors andwindows and the ownersprovided a key for spot checksand fire safety.

Two years later, the clockfinally ran out on the owedtaxes and the city officiallybecame hotel owners.

It was May 1977 andalthough no one knew it at thetime, the vacated hotel had lessthan three years left. They were

to be a tumultuous three years:The Prince Edward Hotelwouldn’t go down without afight.

(Next week: A civic debateends in demolition)

• Further details about Brandon’shistoric Hanbury House.

• What about old city hall? Whythe crumbling structure wasn’tsaved.

• Memories of the Red Caboose,taken from the police blotter.PLUS: Browse original source

material, including Brandon Sunarticles from the time and photographs of the hotel.


MORE ONLINE:

Series of furniture auctionsleft hotel building ‘looted’

Two ads that ran in the newspaper shortly after the hotelclosed in 1975. A prospective buyer could have picked upthe hotel for a quarter-million dollars — but the interiorfurnishings would be auctioned off separately.

Photo courtesy Jerrett Photo, SJ McKee Archives

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In the end the material things in life are just that and we arevery well aware of what really counts.

– With are heartfelt thanks, The Fergusons

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By GRANT HAMILTONSun Staff Writer

Former city alderman RonCayer says he is haunted by thecity’s decision to turn off theheat to the historic PrinceEdward Hotel.

Once the heat was turned off,the clock began ticking. It wasknown, right from the hotel’svacancy in 1975, that anyfuture restoration would beeasier if the structure was stillin good shape. Turning off theheat — letting a freeze-thawcycle wreak havoc on thehotel’s supporting concretepillars — would make shortwork of even the sturdiestbuilding.

City clerk Lloyd Thomsonmade that point in the monthsafter the hotel’s closing, as thecity assumed responsibility forheating and powering the hotel.

He told aldermen at the timethat he had contacted themunicipal buildingsuperintendent who reportedthat “considerable damagewould result if freezing tookplace.”

But Cayer says that, just acouple of years later, it wasThomson himself whorecommended that the city turn

the heat off.“On council at the time, we

had an administration board —we called them ‘the troika,’”Cayer remembers. He says itwas Thomson, CharlieHughes, the city engineer andFrank Woodmas, the citytreasurer. “And it was very clearthat Lloyd was the main manon there.”

The “troika” broughtforward their motion shortlyafter he was elected, Cayerrecalls.

“We were novices. Therewere several new councillorsand we weren’t smart enough,”he says now, to challenge theirrecommendation — or even tocall for a recorded vote.

“It was a bad time for council… there were a lot of sheep onthat council.”

That decision, more than anyother, sealed the Prince EdwardHotel’s fate.

Just a few years later,wrecking balls and explosiveswould bring down the buildingin front of a crowd of curiousBrandon residents.

But plenty in that crowd hadhad other ideas on how to savethe building — if not as a hotel,then to re-use it in some otherway.

The ideas started flowingshortly after the hotel closed,under receivership, in early1975.

Although the hotel had beenstripped of furniture, dishes —and anything not nailed down,really — to help pay off anestimated $800,000 debt, thebuilding retained a certain agedcharm. And it could have beenbought for just a quarter-milliondollars.

That was affordable enough,wrote Brandon Sun associateeditor Garth Stouffer, toguarantee the city a handsome,historic building in which topossibly house a museum.

“I could well imagine thesoaring main lobby of thePrince Edward ... housing somelarge pieces of sculpture,” hewrote, comparing the buildingto some of the old museums inEurope.

It was an idea that, later,would gather some steam in thecommunity. But there wereplenty of other possibilities forthe vacant hotel.

First out of the block was theYWCA, which was always onthe lookout for housing forsingle women and one-parentfamilies.

They wrote to then-Manitoba

premier Ed Schreyer withinweeks of the hotel’s closure, butthe city withheld its support andnothing came of the proposal.

And, with city attentionfocused on at least two othercontroversies — an upcomingCanada Games being planned“with a total lack of publicconfidence” and ongoingefforts to amass land for aplanned downtown shoppingmall — the Prince EdwardHotel was shifted to the backburner.

So, little was done until thecity eventually took ownershipof the building through backtaxes, a formality that passedalmost without note in May1977.

Shortly after, Mayor ElwoodGorrie struck a committee tostudy possible future uses forthe hotel, including using it asa possible arts centre, or as anew location for the BrandonPublic Library (then located incramped quarters at the formerMerchant’s Bank building — atthe corner of 11th Street andRosser Avenue, now home tothe Brandon Chamber ofCommerce).

The three-person committeewas tasked with making a fullreport on possible futures forthe abandoned hotel. Theregional library board, theAllied Arts Centre, theAssiniboine Historical Society,the museum board, theBrandon School Division andBrandon University were allinterested.

The mayor’s own pet ideawas renovating the building foran arts centre, to coincide withthe city’s centennialcelebrations in 1982.

“The goal of this city is tohave a museum and an artscentre,” Gorrie said about amonth after the city tookpossession. “The alternative to(the Prince Edward Hotel) is atotally new building whichwould be horribly expensive tobuild.”

Two days of meetings inAugust heard presentationsfrom all of those groups, aswell as the Western Manitoba

Square and Round DancingAssociation and the WestmanMedia Co-op Ltd, then holdinga new license for cabletelevision in Westman andinterested in the hotel’sbasement for its offices.

At that time, in late August1977, the damage from lack ofheating was limited to peelingpaint and many seemedenthusiastic about thepossibility of turning the hotelinto a multi-arts complex.

The hotel itself had beenvalued at $1.4 million, whichwould be the city’s contributionto the proposal. The federaland provincial governmentswere expected to kick inmatching grants of $1.4 millioneach and that would be justabout enough for therenovation, said LewisWhitehead, then the presidentof the Allied Arts Centre aswell as publisher of theBrandon Sun, basing hisnumbers on estimates from alocal group of architects.

Along with the library, on thetop three floors, it would createenough museum space to makethe city proud.

The idea to turn the hotelinto an arts and cultural centresurvived the 1977 municipalelection — hardly evenbecoming an issue — and the

new council accepted $15,000from Ottawa for an extensivestudy of the idea. It took nearlya year.

In March 1979, Guelphconsultant David Scott wasfinally ready to release theresults of his study.


Drawn-out debate ends in hotel’s demolition

Brandon’s




• June 2: The railway builds• June 9: Heyday of the hotel• June 16: Decline of a giant• June 23: Debate and demolition• June 30: Scars left on a city


Although it was officially named the Prince Edward Hotel,in the vernacular it was always the “Prince Eddy.”

Or is that the “Prince Eddie”?The earliest written version appears to be “Eddie” but

during the ’70s, the “Eddy” form surged forward inpopularity.

It’s counterintuitive. In the rest of the culture, prominentEddies like Eddie Murphy, Eddie Van Halen and EddieMoney all use the “-ie” version.

Professional cyclist Eddy Merckx may be the most famousEddy-with-a-y.

Except in Brandon, where recent usage confirms that thepreferred short version is “Prince Eddy.”

Find out more online, including why the nickname maybe considered derogatory.

Is it Eddy or Eddie?

Sun photo by Rod Foster

A sequence of photos shows the dynamiting of the west half of the Prince Edward Hotel on Feb. 24, 1980. A crowd of people showed up to watch the blast, which was supposed to have been kept a secret. Although police erected barricades a block away, a cloud of dust and snow rushed over the onlookers.

The Prince Edward Hotel, Part IV

Despite the dust, many onlookers wandered close to the site.

(Continued Page 4)

Scott was a week away fromcoming to Brandon for a closedcity council meeting about thereport when it was leaked tothe Brandon Sun.

The study’s contents wereblockbuster news.

Renovating the PrinceEdward Hotel would cost morethan $5 million, Scottestimated. And the whole planrelied on the provinceproviding 90 per cent of that.

For a city council that hadhad a hard time acceptingearlier estimates in the $3million range, the cost wasstaggering. An extra $2 millionwould be that much harder tosell to a cost-conscious groupof aldermen, predicted Ald.Marie Kotyk.

The news wasn’t all bad.Scott’s report showed that thebuilding was still largely ingood shape.

“The Prince Edward Hoteland annex would appear to beexcellent buildings, soundlyconstructed and in remarkablygood external condition,” thereport said.

However, upgrades neededto bring the hotel up to snuffwere estimated to cost$750,000 — an expenseblamed on continuing frostdamage. And there wereworries that the upper floors,designed for people, wouldn’tbe able to support a library’sworth of books.

The city weighed its options,and decided for $5 million, anew library and arts buildingwould be more cost-efficient.Indeed, it could be part of thenew downtown mall.

They offered the hotel forsale, one last time.

“Prince Edward planscrapped” said the front-pageheadline in the Brandon Sunon Aug. 24, 1979. The storyfeatured two aldermen — RickBorotsik and Pat Egan —musing publicly that, at thatpoint, the hotel was destinedfor the wrecking ball.

After no offers to purchase

the building were received, thenew mayor joined theirchorus.

“We have to face the fact thatthe building is not useful ... wecan’t leave it any longer,”Mayor Ken Burgess said.

City council first voted toexplore demolition in lateSeptember 1979.

But a former colleaguewasn’t about to let the buildinggo down easily.

“I’ve lost faith in those whoare responsible for letting it getin this condition,” formermayor Steve Magnacca said.

It was Magnacca who wouldbecome point man in a furiouscampaign over the next fewmonths to “Save the Eddy.”

But first, an even moreprominent person would lendhis name to the fight.

“Get out pickets, lie down infront of city hall, scream andshout,” renowned historianPierre Berton advised Brandonresidents during a trip to thecity. “Hold a funeral for it onthe main street.”

His words galvanizedsupporters, but not everyone

was on board. City councillorsfought back.

“There’s probably not a stickof furniture in the building andnot a solid piece of plumbing,”Burgess said. “There’s been atremendous amount ofvandalism and damage.”

Ald. Borotsik, who called thecondition of the hotel “dire,”arranged a media tour, so thatthe public would get a sense ofthe current state of the hotel.

For the first time, photos ofthe decaying and damagedstructure were printed in thepaper.

The front desk had been themain target of vandals in thefront lobby. Furnishings, likebrass accoutrements from thefireplace, had been stolen.Graffiti marred the walls andstaircases.

But not everyone whoillegally entered the hotel wasa vandal. During those emptyyears in the 1970s, at least oneteenaged girl was following herboyfriend up to the roof, wherethey would gaze out over thecity’s skyline.

That was now-mayor Shari

Decter Hirst, who recallshaving many “profounddiscussions” on the roof of thevacant hotel.

Although she says they neverventured inside, the incredibleview from the roof is apowerful memory.

“It was amazing,” she said.“Downtown was surroundedby church spires …. You feltlike you could see to the edgeof town, which would havebeen not even 26th Street. Andit seemed like it would be likethat forever.”

The roof was heavy withpigeons and studies checkingthe soundness of the hoteldeemed it one of the moreexpensive fixes that thebuilding would require.

But some said that the worstwas damage from theengineering studies themselves.

Holes had been drilled intosupport pillars — one wassheared straight through,although opponents arguedwhether frost or overzealousengineers had been responsible.

The Assiniboine HistoricalSociety charged mistreatment

by the city.“They were supposedly

testing (support pillars) but theydid more damage than thevandals did,” said RobertCoates, a society chartermember. He said most of thevandalism was superficial,since the hotel had beenstrongly constructed, withconcrete and rebar floorsunderneath the hardwood.

“It’s the way the Germansbuilt bunkers,” he said. “It’simpossible for it to fall. Itwould last another 100 to 200years if it was looked after.”

But the engineers said that asmall amount of damage wasnecessary. And they added theywere surprised at the lowquality of the hotel’sconstruction.

“For a building of its age,one thing that’s surprising is the(poor) quality of the concretein there,” said Bob Petri,director of the company thatperformed the study.

Despite the sour engineering

study, many still believed thebuilding was structurallysound.

Tony Griffin, a formermanager of the Prince Edwardwho worked in the hotel from1961-71, thought that “a silentmajority” of city residentsopposed tearing it down.


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• One hotel, two managers andtwo very different opinions.

• The difficult birth of the Brandon Gallery, which did not get built as planned.PLUS: Browse original source

material, including Brandon Sunarticles from the time andnever-before-published photosof the hotel’s wrecked interiorand eventual demolition.


MORE ONLINE:

Arts centre proposalpopular, but pricey

Salvage workers peer over a balcony at the front of the Prince Edward Hotel as debate over the building’s future begins to wind down and demolition seems assured.

Former Brandon mayor Steve Magnacca, the public faceof the “Save the Eddy” committee, takes a final tour of

the decaying interior of the hotel.

Sun file photos


(Continued Page 5)

“But I may be a voice cryingin the wilderness.”

A few other voices began tostep forward, including anotherformer employee of the hotel.

Terry Hudson, who workedin the lounge in the 1960s,made a serious offer to the cityto buy the hotel for $1, on thecondition that it cancel theback taxes while he worked onsalvaging the building.

Hudson’s plan envisioned abuilding full of shops, but in themeantime, it turned out that hehoped to move into the hoteland renovate it piece by pieceas time and money allowed.

Council passed.But the thought that

someone might still be able tobuy — and save — the buildingsparked several other proposals.

One, from G.L. Medland,attracted brief excitement. Helaid out a 10-stage renovationplan, beginning with protectingthe building from the elementsand climaxing with theopening of a covered walkwayfrom the hotel’s upper floors tothe new downtown mall.

To finance his plans, Medlandsaid he would use some parts ofthe Prince Edward as a hoteland rent out other spaces tocultural and arts groups.

His words were backed withthe offer of a $25,000 deposit.But just a day later, when itcame time to actually presentin front of city council, the offerwas withdrawn — another,better project had apparentlycaught his eye.

At the same meeting, lackingoptions, aldermen decided tosend out tenders for the hotel’sdemolition.

Magnacca stepped to theforefront.

The former mayor raced tocollect signatures on a petitionand financial pledges to savethe hotel. He quickly amassedabout 900 names and morethan $10,000. He didn’t thinkthere would be any troubleraising hundreds of thousandsmore.

He also said he hoped thatthe costs of demolition wouldcause city council to thinktwice. A restored hotel, he said,could be the best possible giftto the city for its 1982centennial.

Alas, demolition tenderswere not high enough tochange council’s mind — theyeventually went with RakowskiCartage of Winnipeg, whichsaid it could do the job for justunder $200,000.

A final tour — six cityemployees and six localbusiness people — took a lookat the hotel and votedunanimously to demolish it.

“Don’t waste my tax dollarstrying to restore that building,”they wrote in a statement tocouncil. “Tear it down andquickly, before it falls down andkills someone.”

The Prince Edward’s fatewas sealed at a city councilmeeting on Nov. 16, 1979, withan unceremonious vote fordemolition.

The speedy decision tooksome wind out of the sails ofMagnacca’s “Save the Eddy”committee, but it continued tomake a series of last-ditchefforts.

The group teamed up withHudson, the man who hadoffered to buy the hotel for $1.More funds were raised, and

more signatures gathered.There was talk of a legalinjunction and pleas to let thecommittee take ownership ofthe hotel.

But mayor Burgess said itwas too late.

“Council has made adecision and an agreement hasbeen signed, so we’re legallybound,” Burgess said. “If it’sgoing to be demolished, now isthe time we should startworking on it.”

Magnacca, after one finaltour inside the building, gaveup. He said he still thought itwas structurally sound, butfigured that city council hadlong since made up its mind.

“You can’t fight a losingbattle,” Magnacca said. “It’sready for demolition, the waythey had it planned.”

On Monday, Jan. 21, 1980,crews started taking down thehotel, piece by piece.

They began with the RedCaboose and by early February,the night spot was just amemory. Then a wrecking ballwas moved over to the hotel.

“The first cut is the steepest”was the headline on Feb. 18,1980, as the Sun published apicture of the building beingsmashed in from the front.

Plans called for the PrinceEdward to be cut in half andthen each side would bebrought down separately.

It was expected to takeweeks, perhaps months.

But for many Brandonresidents, shivering outside ona February afternoon, thedeath of the Prince EdwardHotel could be pinpointed to asingle blast — as half the hotelwould be brought down byexplosives.

The date of the demolition(Sunday, Feb. 24, 1980) wassupposed to have been a secret.But hundreds knew, eitherthrough word of mouth, orbecause they spotted thegrowing crowd that day andjoined it themselves. Policehastily erected barriers to keepcurious onlookers at bay, ablock back at Ninth Street andLorne Avenue.

It was about -14 C andcompletely still when, shortlyafter 4 p.m., carefully laidexplosive charges vaporized thesupport columns of the eastwing of the hotel.

To bring down the buildingrequired less than 45 kilogramsof special high-velocitydynamite.

With most of the hotel’sweight resting on its supportcolumns, holes were drilled intoeach one and the explosivesinserted, engineer HaroldSultzbaugh explained. Thework was made easier thanksto badly decayed concrete.

The hotel had “shoddyconstruction,” he said, addingthat each column had just fourreinforcing rods when thereshould have been 10.

When the dynamite was lit,the building collapsed inseconds, sending a cloud ofdust and snow rushing towardcurious bystanders who hadgathered in a crowd.

Shutters clicked, recordingthe implosion for posterity. It’sprobably one of the mostphotographed moments inBrandon history.

It was a brief moment ofexcitement to punctuate thelong slog of demolition.

There weren’t enoughcolumns in the west half of thehotel building to use dynamiteon it and it was too close to aneighbouring building anyway,so crews again brought in thewrecking ball.

After about two weeks ofchipping away at the west side,workers figured they wereabout half complete. Instead,

on their lunch break, they wereastonished to see itunexpectedly shiver andcollapse in a heap.

The last of the hotel “moreor less sunk into the ground”on its own just before 1 p.m. onMarch 14, 1980.

The demolition companysaid it was lucky that no onewas hurt and blamed thecollapse on holes it had drilledin the basement to testequipment.

But their prosaicexplanation, reasonable as itmay be, can’t take away fromthe poetry of the moment —the Prince Edward Hotel, foryears given up on by the city,finally gave up on itself.

Later that spring, anunremarkable parking lotwould be opened on the hotelsite. But the battle over theproperty was far from over.

NEXT WEEK:Scars left on a city

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Dance of death allthat’s left for ’Eddy’

LEFT: A worker pulls off protective plywood from a window at the Red Caboose. Theword “Help” is scrawled on the wood. RIGHT: A couple watches from across Princess

Avenue as a wrecking ball crashes into the front of the Prince Edward Hotel.

Sun file photos


BY GRANT HAMILTONTHE BRANDON SUN

At the time it happened, it was perhapsreasonable to assume that knocking down thePrince Edward Hotel was just the first step onthe way to something bigger and better.

Many Brandon residents lamented the factthat the city couldn’t find the money to turn thehotel into a library and arts centre. Many moresigned petitions and donated money to try tosave the building — for any purpose — once itbecame clear it was headed for demolition.

But a growing number felt that the time tosave the Prince Edward was past. With the heatoff, the concrete crumbling, the vaunted fixtureslong-since auctioned off, they felt that the hotelwas too far gone.

And there had always been a solid core ofpeople who felt that the hotel was not just pastits prime, that the building itself had never beenworth saving. Sure, it was old, but in their view,that wasn’t a good thing.

Brandon was experiencing a building boomin the late 1970s and early ’80s — somewhatparallelling the early 1900s, when the PrinceEdward Hotel had been built. A brand-newdowntown shopping mall, the Brandon Gallery,was expected to catalyze retail shopping in thecore area. Scotia Towers and the BrandonUniversity science building were big newadditions to the city’s skyline.

A new city hall had been built in a deliberatelystark, new, modern style. A brand-newprovincial building was next down the street —both on property that had once been railwaytracks leading to the Prince Edward.

But the time of the railroad — and therailroad hotel — were deemed to be past.

And many Brandon residents believed thatafter the hotel was out of the way — even theman in charge of trying to sell it called it “oldand obsolete” — something new, and bydefinition better, would rise.

So, among the crowds of people whowatched, curiously, as a wrecking ball slammedinto the historic facade, or who groupedthemselves behind barricades for the dynamitespectacle of implosion, a significant numberwere nodding their heads in approval. Now, theymust have thought, we can really do somethingwith this space.

And, in fact, the city, which now owned thelot, wasted no time in putting the property to atleast some use.

Within weeks of the demolition being allcleaned up, city council decided that while theywaited for a shiny new commercialdevelopment, they could at least collect quarterson the site, and voted to spend $4,000 to turn itinto a gravel parking lot.

The 150-stall lot was left gravel, deliberatelynot paved, with the expectation that it wouldsoon be transformed into something else.

The parking lot was “a short-term solution,”said then-mayor Ken Burgess, but a goodsolution.

Parking, it was believed, was necessary toensure that people would continue to shopdowntown.

In fact, the land’s use forparked cars was perceived to beso valuable that a Brandon realestate firm offered the city$200,000 on the spot — so itcould stay a parking lot.

Joe Perry, manager ofHughes and Company Ltd,told city council that theparking spaces were requiredfor two other downtowndevelopments that the firm wasplanning.

Burgess wasn’t convinced.The property was increasing invalue every day, he said, as thenew downtown mall got closerand closer to completion. Andthen-alderman Rick Borotsiksaid he was against the PrinceEdward lot being a permanentparking lot, although he addedthat Hughes and Company’sother promised downtowndevelopments — contingent onhaving enough parking —certainly “sweetened the deal.”

Perry, disappointed, said hecouldn’t blame the city for

trying to get the best price possible, but hopedthey would hurry up.

His was just the first of several quick bids forthe property.

That September, Greyhound said that thevacant lot looked appealing for a new busterminal. It would have been a short movesideways for the company — their existingterminal was just two blocks down at 11th Streetand Princess Avenue — but their $300,000 bidwas rejected.

Although some councillors thought themoney was enough to recoup their owed taxesand the money they’d spent demolishing thehotel, others thought the vacant lot was worthmore — a lot more — and it could possibly besold for half a million within a year.

Other ideas for the lot began to pop up — anew hotel, a convention centre, even a newpolice station.

City council also entertained offers from theOddfellows Lodge No. 6 and from area LionsClubs, who each wanted to use the land to buildseniors housing — multimillion-dollar high-risecomplexes.

The Lions’ $5-million plan, for example,envisioned 108 housing units, with commercialdevelopment like a small grocery and hair salonon the main floor. They offered $75,000 for thelot (more than the Oddfellows had), andindicated a willingness to go even higher.

Some of the projected numbers soundedpromising. The seniors’ residence would bringin about $55,000 in tax revenue every year —more than twice what the land was making asa parking lot.

But councillors felt they should still hold outfor a commercial development. After all,commercial development might bring in the city$75,000 every year — and a privately ownedapartment complex could generate as much as$120,000 in annual tax revenue, estimated KeithTimmons, the city’s property administrator.

Money wasn’t the only issue, however.Timmons warned that the valuable parkingspaces lost to the Lions development would haveto be replaced somewhere.

Council rejected the Lions proposal, as theyhad rejected the Oddfellows.

Perry, who had wanted to buy the lot in thefirst place, was incensed. Maybe they hadn’tsold the lot to him, but they could at least getoff their hands and do something with it, hesaid.

“Developers … are being discouraged andheld back by city council’s inefficiencies andshort-sightedness,” he wrote in a scathing letterto the editor. “Mismanagement andstonewalling on the part of this present councilhas been damaging to this city.”

Sun editorial writers also chimed in, pointingout that there was no shortage of vacant lots forcommercial development along Rosser Avenue,and that builders should be encouraged to erecthigh-rise residences nearby — say, alongPrincess Avenue.

The city, perhaps chastened, called for tenderson the property. But the Lions were the onlyparty that expressed an interest — doubling theiroffer to $150,000 and once again saying the price

could be negotiated.Once more, the city turned

them down. Burgess reiteratedthat any offer should at leastcompensate the city for the$194,000 it had spent todemolish the hotel four yearsearlier and suggested a pricecloser to $250,000.

It was too much for theLions, who said that costwould be “a burden.”

Although a couple of yearsearlier, council had turneddown a $300,000 offer, hopingthey could sell the lot for a halfmillion dollars or more,suddenly no one seemedinterested in putting up even aquarter million.

In fact, over the next decade,the site dropped completely offthe development radar. The cityput out one last set of feelersfor development proposals inlate 1985, but again, nothingcame of it.


PRINCE EDWARD HOTEL — PART FIVEPRINCE EDWARD HOTEL — PART FIVE

Hotel’s lossleft scars

on BrandonCity still battles over other heritage properties; portions

of the Prince Edward remain strewn through the city

BRANDON SUN FILE

A man buys dashboard tickets on the site of the former Prince Edward Hotel in 1980, whena parking lot to replace the demolished hotel was brand-new. Parking two hours would costyou two bits back there — or you could park all day for 75 cents.

COLIN CORNEAU/BRANDON SUN FILE

Justin Borody works on a stone bench that became part of a Princess Park amphitheatrein September 1999. The stones, about to become seats for future audiences, were amongthe last to come from the old Prince Edward Hotel.

GRANT HAMILTON/BRANDON SUN

Four ornate crystal chandeliers — prominent standouts in this modernist environment —hang over the sunken foyer in city hall. They were rescued from the main dining room ofthe Prince Edward Hotel, which once stood just two blocks away.

BY GRANT HAMILTONTHE BRANDON SUN

New visitors to Brandon’smodernist city hall may bepardoned a moment ofcognitive dissonance when theyfirst look up in the lobby.

Above a sunken central area,which is mostly illuminated bynatural light from the frontglass wall, a ceiling full ofhidden fluorescent lightsensures that no shadowsremain.

But at each corner is a lateaddition. Four chandeliershang from the ceiling, theirteardrop crystals and ornatedesign harbouring a style thatis a notch or 10 more classicthan the rest of the building.

Those chandeliers arerefugees from the PrinceEdward Hotel.

The city took possession ofthe property in 1977 after a taxsale, and demolished it in early1980. But before the buildingfell, they helped themselves tosome of the nicer furnishings

that had been left behind.Only four chandeliers

currently hang in city hall.There were originally at least12 of that style in the hotel’smain dining room (along withanother six of a different,smaller style) and the cityapparently still has some ofthem packed away, deep instorage.

Plenty of Westman residentsalso have bits and piecessquirreled away. Furniture,dishes and other miscellaneousitems were auctioned off to paythe hotel’s owners’ bills, shortlyafter the doors shut for the lasttime, in 1975.

Even today, many peoplehave chairs, or dressers — or inat least one case, formeremployee lockers — in theirhomes and garages. Theycontinue to pop up in classifiedads, where “from the PrinceEdward Hotel” adds a cachetto the items that other usedfurniture wouldn’t have.

Not everything was lovinglysaved. A marble fireplace went

missing from the hotel duringits vacancy — apparentlystolen.

Others creatively re-usedpieces of the hotel they’dlegitimately acquired.

During the demolition,Stephen Aker managed toobtain the solid oak steps fromthe Prince Edward Hotel. Hespent the next few yearscarving them into artisticclocks — some 40 or 50 by thetime he was written up in thepaper — as well as a half-dozenor so plant stands.

“It is reasonable to assumemany people in southernManitoba have pieces of thePrince Eddie ticking away ontheir mantles,” wrote PennyHamm in a 1987 article thatdescribed Aker’s work.

“But for Aker, this hobby is‘a good tension reliever.’”

FIND OUT MORE ABOUTWHERE THE HOTEL ENDED

UP … ONLY ONLINE.

Where is the Prince Edward now?

Brandon’s




• June 2: The railway builds• June 9: Heyday of the hotel• June 16: Decline of a giant• June 23: Debate and demolition• June 30: Scars left on a city

Much more is collected online, at brandonsun.com/PrinceEdwardHoteland we invite you to share your storieswith us there. CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

Then, as part of an effort toimprove the image ofdowntown, including newlimestone gateways at First andPrincess, and at 18th andRosser (a third was proposedfor 10th and Victoria), councilvoted to permanently pave thelot in 1987 — a move thatseemed to signal the parking lotwas at least semi-permanent.

The next year, a newdowntown organization, theDowntown Brandon BusinessImprovement Area, or BIA,was formed. It adopted parkingas a major focus of its efforts,and the lot at the former PrinceEdward Hotel was believed tobe an asset in attractingshoppers downtown.

Over the next decade,landscaping and upgrading ofthe Prince Edward parking lotwould be discussed often, butno redevelopment proposalscame forward.

By the late ’90s, though,something changed: People gotnostalgic. A major new capitalproject at neighbouringPrincess Park was unveiled —a new fountain andperformance stage. Both, as itturned out, would be partiallyconstructed using savedlimestone blocks from thePrince Edward Hotel.

Its name began to ring out innewspaper articles and lettersto the editor. It hadn’t been thispopular since its demolition.

The reason? An ongoingtussle over the future of thevacant Brandon Mental HealthCentre on the North Hill.

Some felt that a casino upthere would help pay for thehistoric buildings’ restoration.And one study proposed aresidential development.

They were also being toutedas a possible home for agrowing AssiniboineCommunity College.

The BMHC buildings hadbeen built at about the sametime as the Prince EdwardHotel, and many drew anexplicit comparison betweenthe two — excoriating the cityfor its failure in the 1970s, andurging elected officials to stepin and save BMHC.

“The naysayers speak ofexpensive upgrading. Sure it’sscary, it’s a challenge. ThePrince Edward Hotel was lostwith that argument,” wroteDouglas Brolund in a letterdripping with scorn. “Drive bythe site some time and see the‘improvements.’”

But a familiar chorus wassaying that BMHC wasn’t

worth saving, and the buildingswere too old, in too muchdisrepair, to save.

“We shouldn’t be pressuredto save these buildings by thevocal minority with big dreamsthat they can’t pay for,” wroteMike Burgess in a letter to theeditor. “Although the buildingsare very nice, they have servedtheir purpose. It is time to cutour losses, knock them down,sell the land and begin tocollect revenue from landtaxes.”

But even Burgess, grandsonof the mayor at the helm whenthe Prince Edward Hotel wasknocked down, made a nod inthe hotel’s direction.

“We as a community havelearned our lesson regardingthe Prince Edward Hotel andmade great strides in recentyears to preserve heritagebuildings in Brandon,” hisletter continued. “Let’s not letfeelings of regret (Prince Eddy)cloud our judgment.”

In the end, ACC made apartial move into refurbishedbuildings at BMHC, althoughthere are still vacant buildingsawaiting development.

Meanwhile, problems werecropping up downtown.Despite early success, retailerswere beginning to pull out ofthe Brandon Gallery, and thearea was once again thought tobe in decline.

Eaton’s and Shoppers DrugMart left as the mall lost halfof its small retail tenants.

It was a stumble that hadobvious repercussions fornearby properties — includingthe parking lot at Ninth andPrincess. After all, the mall wassupposed to have been acommercial anchor, ensuringthat the nearby Prince EdwardHotel lot would inevitablyincrease in value.

Thoughts of developing theparking lot faded.

But then, in 2006, a group ofskateboarders approached cityhall with their eyes on the spot.

The group had for years beentrying to find land for a newskateboard park, but oppositionfrom nearby residents hadtaken a 26th Street location offthe table, and only a small parkhad been built, in an out-of-the-way location near theriverbank.

City council, however, hadset aside money to seed theproject, if an appropriatelocation could be found, andthis time the skateboarders hadenlisted some high-levelsupporters.

Then-councillor VinceBarletta, whose Rosser Ward

included the proposed site, wasan early supporter. MarlowKirton, then managing partnerof The Town Centre, was alsoon board as a committeemember.

And it didn’t hurt thatskateboarding shop SenateSkates was earning areputation as a solid corporatecitizen in Brandon.

Council demurred at first —then-Assiniboine Wardcouncillor Doug Patersonthought the $400,000 budgetfor the park sounded “a bitrich” for a city of Brandon’ssize — but eventually poniedup for an architectural study.

A year later, plans wereunveiled to great fanfare. And,in a nod to the lot it wasoccupying, the proposed plazawas designed to emulate andhonour the Prince EdwardHotel.

“We have a great deal ofrespect for the heritage of thesite,” Kirton told the Sun,showing how steel trelliseswould emulate the look of therailway hotel, and howdifferent areas of theskateboard plaza would bearnames referencing classiclocations in the building.

Of course, not everyone wassupportive.

“I’m very much in favour ofa skateboard park … (but) Ithink it’s absolutely the wrongplace for it.” said downtowndeveloper John Laurence,adding that the site would bebetter used for commercialdevelopment or for parking.

Plans for the park, designedby Scatliff+Miller+Murray, ofWinnipeg, moved forward. Theprice tag had inflated to anestimated price tag of $600,000— and it would eventually costmore than $1 million.

But just two years later, withlittle controversy, most of thefunding was in place, and ateam of city dignitaries grabbedskateboard decks for a 2009groundbreaking ceremony.

Work on the plaza proper —named after KristopherCampbell, a Brandon teenagerand skateboarder who hadbeen killed in a car accident —began in 2010, and the parkofficially opened later that year.

A funding breakdownpublished at the time of thegroundbreaking shows theremarkable about-face that citycouncil made on valuing theproperty.

Where once an intransigentcity hall had turned downoffers of $200,000 and$300,000 — holding out forhalf a million, with big taxrevenues, too — when it cameto a skateboard plaza, the landwas given away for nothing.

Not only did the land comefree, the city of Brandon alsofunded thousands of dollarsworth of feasibility studies. Thecity also provided some$125,000 in the project’s earlystages and it’s arms-lengthdowntown developmentorganization, RenaissanceBrandon, chipped in anadditional 75,000.

The fact that the city waspaying out cash for a

skateboard facility, rather thanreceiving tax revenue from adevelopment has not escapedlocal politicians.

“It's a dilemma, and ithappens all the time,” saysMayor Shari Decter Hirst. “Butrarely do mayors have theluxury of being idealists. ... I’mjust glad that it’s full of life.”

“It’s a bit bittersweet,” agreesBrandon East MLA DrewCaldwell, whose downtownoffice is nearby. “It's not acairn, which would be atravesty, frankly. At least this

celebrates that at that spot,where these kids are enjoyinga great sport, stood amonumental building thatdefined this community formore than half a century.”

Both say they are nowfocused on future heritage sites— the Brandon Inn, thedowntown fire hall, FirstBaptist Church, the StrandTheatre and additionalbuildings at the formerBrandon Mental Health Centresite.

Meanwhile, other private

interests are beginning to showan interest in long-neglectedbuildings like the CP railstation at the foot of 10thStreet, the McKenzie Seedsbuilding, soon to becondominiums, the formerMTS building on Ninth Street,as well as ongoing efforts at theDome Building.

In the discussions about allof them, though, memories ofthe Prince Edward Hotel —and its fate — cast a longshadow.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

Disappointment over hotel influences decisions today

Above: Zack Hodgsen, 10,takes a jump on his BMX

bike at the KristopherCampbell Memorial SkatePlaza on Friday afternoon,as his friend Zach Gwyer,12, circles around to takea turn behind. The skate-board park was designed

right from the first designs,at right, to echo the Prince

Edward Hotel.

Debbie Quintaine poses with the former safe from the PrinceEdward Hotel, which is now used to store routine businessrecords for P. Quintaine and Son. She found the safe rustingaway in a back yard before having it fully restored — almost.Find out the whole story, including what part she’s still miss-ing, online at brandonsun.com/princeedwardhotel.

GRANT HAMILTON/BRANDON SUN

A careful walker along the Kirkcaldy Drive dikes can peer over the side and see a jumbledmass of concrete shoring up portions of the Assiniboine River banks that would be suscep-tible to erosion. The city dumped about 350 truckloads of Prince Edward Hotel rubble intothe river.

SUBMITTED

GRANT HAMILTON / BRANDON SUN

Keeping it ‘safe’GRANT HAMILTON / BRANDON SUN

Prince Edward Hotel at 100

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