By Carson Ellis
Before the Stettler hotel, there was the National, and it was one of Carl Stettler’s many business ventures in the community.
The first hotel was a luxurious brick hotel with all the amenities available at the time. This posed a problem in October 1908 when a fire spread through most of Stettler’s business core, destroying more than 20 businesses. The fire brigade was already struggling to keep the fire under control in the cold temperatures, and the added height of the National Hotel made saving it from the fire nearly impossible. It became a matter of containment and the focus quickly turned to the adjacent lumber yard.
At some point between the destruction of the first National Hotel in 1908 and the early phase of construction on the new National Hotel, Mr. Stettler sold the property to R. L. Shaw, who with his business partners John Good, and John Carder, also owned the new Royal Hotel in town.
The new National Hotel would open for business in June of 1909. The new hotel was just as top quality as the one before it. Places like the National would put a great deal of pressure on the town to improve its water line system, in order to help improve their guests’ experiences. Early on, the only source of water was from the town’s pump, which was outside of the hotel and would often be surrounded by ice in the winter time and hard to approach.
However, in the early morning hours of Feb. 23, 1942, a fire started in the beer parlour of the National Hotel, which was located under the suite of the manager, Calhoun and family. The fire quickly spread through the building, however, all the guests staying at the time were able to get out safely and there were no serious injuries or loss of life.
As word of the growing blaze spread, business owners on the same block as the National raced to their shops and began putting their merchandise out into the streets for fear the fire would spread to their buildings much like it had in 1908. However, this was not the case since the solid brick wall on the north face of the National Hotel did its job of preventing the fire from spreading further.
A third hotel opened on the corner lot of the former National Hotel on June 30, 1948. An estimated 2,000 people attended the grand opening celebrations hosted by the hotel’s manager Frank Opdebeck and the hotel’s owners the Calgary Brewing and Malting Company. It was a grand celebration with officials from the Calgary Brewing company’s head office, including the head of the Calgary Brewing and Malting company’s cafeteria, overseeing the provided meal with food brought specially from Calgary.
The hotel was unfinished at the time of the celebrations. However, the third floor was occupied by guests, and the tavern was in use. All that remained were parts of the second floor and the coffee shop, which would be another three to four weeks. The estimated cost of the new fire-proof structure was about $300,000. The new hotel was noted as meeting the highest building codes in both Canada and the U.S.
The Stettler Hotel employed more than 20 local residents.
Editor’s note: Carson Ellis is a member of the Stettler History Book Committee. He has lived in Stettler his entire life and has a keen interest in Stettler’s history.