Heritage in the Hat: Adieu to the Royals

By MALCOLM SISSONS on November 1, 2022.

Two beloved Royals perished in September of this year. Queen Elizabeth II was 96. The Royal Hotel was even older at 118 when it burned down. As far as is known, no members of the Royal Family ever stayed there however.

In the early 1900s, three hotels were clustered around the railway: the American Hotel, the original Cosmopolitan and the original Assiniboia (none of which still exist).

In March 1904, local restauranteur Quon Koy hired contractor M.C. Sackrider to build a wood frame 26-by-36-foot two-storey hotel with 20 bedrooms, a kitchen, bar, and parlour to be called the Royal Hotel. Koy was planning to run the kitchen while James Brown would operate the hotel, opening for business on July 1, 1904. Koy didn’t keep it long, selling within a year to John Howson for $10,000.

Howson had come from Regina in 1902 and already owned the American Hotel next to the Hargrave Sissons Block (Inspire Cafe). In 1907, Howson hired William T. Williams, a prominent local architect, to design a two-storey 26-by-130 addition with a full basement. Mason George Worthy used wirecut brick to build the structure with a front of pressed brick. It boasted one of the largest bars in Alberta and 29 additional bedrooms featuring hot and cold running water and a loo on each floor! Both buildings featured large balconies overlooking South Railway Street. Opening day was March 5, 1908.

A month later, Robert J. Rice, a retired CPR engineer who had brought one of the first trains into Medicine Hat in 1883, took possession but not for long. In 1911, John Quail, a rancher, made application for liquor licence renewal for the Royal and in an ad, lists himself as proprietor. Quail died suddenly in 1916.

John Read was a fur trader from Fort Benton who settled near Lethbridge in 1883 and then moved to the TA ranch near the Cypress Hills in 1897. He purchased the Royal in 1916 and operated it until he died in 1939. Read strongly supported sports, especially hockey.

Enter George Cantalini, originally from Italy (1904), owner of the Corona Hotel and the original Assiniboia Hotel. He added the Royal Hotel to the Cantalini chain in 1939, enhancing his domination of the hotel landscape in Medicine Hat. The balconies were removed and the fronts modified in the 1940s.

In 1961, Gene DeGagné of Winnipeg and his brother-in-law George Blunt of Calgary, both former CNR railwaymen and WWII veterans, acquired the Royal from the Cantalini family. They had been operating a hotel in Selkirk, Man., before the move to the Hat.

DeGagné and Blunt sold the Royal in 1973 to Keith Lynn, a hotelier from Hamiota, Man., and then purchased the Cecil Hotel. During Lynn’s time, the Saturday music jam became established, with a band called Springfield playing most evenings of the week. The Royal had even featured appearances from Stompin’ Tom Connors and Terry Clark.

In 1991, the Royal Liquor Store was opened across the alley from the old hotel. The first private beer store in Medicine Hat, it was sold along with the Royal Hotel to Lynn’s friend John McBain in 2001, although Lynn remained a fixture until his death in 2004. McBain continued the Saturday jam session until his death in 2017, at which time his son took over the hotel.

John McBain Jr. sold in 2019 to the Compass Business Group, who leased it to Lynn Palmer. She was operating “Medicine Hat’s Classiest Dive Bar” when the devastating fire on September 16, 2022, closed the book on our oldest extant hotel.

Malcolm Sissons is a former member of the Heritage Resources Committee of the City of Medicine Hat

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