Other buildings at risk

When the Prince Edward Hotel was constructed, between 1910–12, the city was in the midst of a building boom. A million dollars of new buildings were erected in each of those three years — equivalent to nearly $70 million of new construction today. And that was in a city of less than 15,000.

In the century since, many of those buildings have been lost. But many are still around.

Steps have been taken to preserve and restore some of them, most prominently the old nurse’s residence at the former Brandon Mental Health Centre, now home to the culinary arts department at Assiniboine Community College.

But other aged buildings have been left to decay — or even to collapse, as in the ignominous case of the Brown Block, which heaved over into 10th Street under a load of heavy wet snow in mid-March 2011.

What do skaters say?

On a recent afternoon visit to the Kristopher Campbell Memorial Skate Plaza, skateboarders were actually outnumbered by BMX bikers.

The skate park, built on the same lot where the Prince Edward Hotel once stood, was designed and built to echo the long-gone building.

Judging by the tentative answers given by young people landing tricks on skateboards and bikes, though, the design work hasn’t quite sunk in.

Ask them what came before the skate park, and you’ll get a few quizzical looks.

Where is the Prince Edward now?

New visitors to Brandon’s modernist city hall may be pardoned a moment of cognitive dissonance when they first look up in the lobby.

Above a sunken central area, which is mostly illuminated by natural light from the front glass wall, a ceiling full of hidden fluorescent lights ensures that no shadows remain.

But at each corner is a late addition. Four chandeliers hang from the ceiling, their teardrop crystals and ornate design harbouring a style that is a notch or 10 more classic than the rest of the building.

Those chandeliers are refugees from the Prince Edward Hotel.

Part 5: Scars left on a city

At the time it happened, it was perhaps reasonable to assume that knocking down the Prince Edward Hotel was just the first step on the way to something bigger and better.

Many Brandon residents lamented the fact that the city couldn’t find the money to turn the hotel into a library and arts centre. Many more signed petitions and donated money to try to save the building — for any purpose — once it became clear it was headed for demolition.

But a growing number felt that the time to save the Prince Edward was past. With the heat off, the concrete crumbling, the vaunted fixtures long-since auctioned off, they felt that the hotel was too far gone.

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

Part 4: Vacancy, debate and demolition

Former city alderman Ron Cayer says he is haunted by the city’s decision to turn off the heat to the historic Prince Edward Hotel.

Once the heat was turned off, the clock began ticking. It was known, right from the hotel’s vacancy in 1975, that any future restoration would be easier if the structure was still in good shape. Turning off the heat — letting a freeze-thaw cycle wreak havoc on the hotel’s supporting concrete pillars — would make short work of even the sturdiest building.

City clerk Lloyd Thomson made that point in the months after the hotel’s closing, as the city assumed responsibility for heating and powering the hotel.

He told aldermen at the time that he had contacted the municipal building superintendent who reported that “considerable damage would result if freezing took place.”

Part 3: Decline of a giant

When the Prince Edward Hotel shut its doors for the last time, on Jan. 29, 1975, it came as a nasty surprise for Brandon senior Roxy Cosgrove. A permanent resident of the hotel, who had lived there for five winters, she had just learned that she would be homeless.

The hotel, broke, had entered receivership. About 78 employees were laid off — with no severance pay. Reservations for three sports teams coming in from Lakehead University were cancelled.

And Cosgrove was spitting mad.

“I don't know which way to look. Just one day to get out,” Cosgrove told the Sun. “I'm a crippled old lady in a wheelchair. I didn’t think they could do this.”

A 1937 Graduation Dinner

For many years, college graduation in Brandon meant a banquet dinner at the Prince Edward Hotel.

It was one of the few venues in the city large enough for such a gathering, and it was certainly the only location classy enough.

In 1937, Brandon College arts graduates preparing to enter their post-collegiate lives spent a celebratory evening in the Prince Edward’s dining room, feasting on roast larded beef tenderloin, chateau potatoes and giant peas au buerre.

There was a full menu of speeches and entertainment as well — each accompanied by a bon mot quotation.

Part 2: Heyday of the hotel

As the social, cultural and physical heart of the city, Brandon’s Prince Edward Hotel was, quite literally, a place where people came together.

And Sandra Armstrong is living proof of one particularly romantic example.Armstrong, now a librarian at the Brandon Armoury museum, says that her parents met while they were both working at the Prince Edward, in the early 1930s.

Her father Bill Armstrong would have been a young bellhop when he first spotted the woman who would become his bride. She was a couple years older than him, and working at the hotel’s newsstand.

It seems that Bill was almost destined to have something to do with the Prince Edward. Born in 1912, the same year the hotel was completed, he emigrated as an infant with his parents from England to Brandon — arriving in the city within weeks of the hotel’s gala grand opening.

Weathering a railway strike

During a recent strike by CP rail employees, the federal government forced them back to work with emergency legislation. Labour Minister Lisa Raitt said the strike was harming the country’s economy and its reputation.

For those with an eye on history, though, that stance seemed a little over-the-top.

A massive rail strike in 1950 showed what economic consequences to a country could really look like.

The strike dominated headlines for 10 days. With freight stalled, fresh food become a worry. Telegraph operators worked for the railways, so they were off the job, too, and telephone switchboards became overwhelmed with long-distance calls — some taking an hour to connect. The government thought seriously about temporarily nationalizing the airlines, if only to get the mail through, at least.

Opening the International Peace Garden

Up to 30,000 people were expected, along with nine bands and a 300-voice choir. Featured would be games of softball, lacrosse and horseshoe pitching — then an international tug-of-war.

A plane would take off from a brand-new strip, taking visitors on aerial tours. Two special train coaches were delivering guests and special buses would be taking a freshly-graded gravel road from Boissevain. The RCMP would be directing traffic; a dozen nurses were on standby in a first-aid tent.

Several premiers and U.S. state governors were among the dignitaries tapped to give speeches. President Hoover sent greetings, as did the Governor General.

It was 1932, and the International Peace Garden was being dedicated.

View from the Keyhole: Memoirs of a bellhop in the ’40s

In 1995, at the urging of Fred McGuinness, Lawrence Stuckey wrote down his memories of working at the Prince Edward Hotel. They are now held at the S.J. McKee Archives, part of the Fred McGuinness collection, and they are transcribed in full, below:

From Lawrence Stuckey -- Oct. 13, 1995

To Fred McGuinness

Sued over a sidewalk

In October 1911, a small item was published in the regular list of council business.

“It was resolved: That the request of the Canadian Northern Railway Co. for sidewalk on Ninth street, in front of the hotel and station be granted, the same to be paid for by the railway in cash.”

Although aldermen for the rapidly growing Brandon were continually dealing with requests from residents and businesses for street upgrades, what makes this particular item noteworthy is its backstory.

A couple of years earlier, while the city was busily courting the CNR, trying to entice the company to build a new depot and then a big, first-class hotel in Brandon, both the city and the railway were distracted by a pesky lawsuit.

Who was Prince Edward?

When the Canadian National Railway announced that their under-construction hotel would be named the Prince Edward, they were tapping into a popular surge of royal sentiment.

George V had become king upon his father’s death in May 1910, but his coronation wasn’t held until June the next year, and 1911 was marked Dominion-wide as Coronation Year.

Brandon joined the celebration, naming a brand-new East End school in honour of King George.

And, in early August, the Canadian Northern Railway announced that they would name their new hotel after George’s son, who had been invested as Edward, Prince of Wales.

Down on the Titanic?

It’s a popular myth that the original furnishings for the Prince Edward Hotel were being shipped over on the Titanic, when they went down in the north Atlantic.

But a myth is all it’s likely to be. Most people point to Mary Hume’s 1982 centennial book, “Brandon: A Prospect Of A City,” a local best-seller that includes the Titanic connection and no doubt accounts for the myth’s widespread belief today.

But for a number of reasons, it’s probably not true.

The earliest record that could be found to link the Titanic with the Prince Edward Hotel furnishings is a 1975 column by Garth Stouffer, then the Brandon Sun’s associate editor.