The Partners:
From Station to Village to Resort
After the completion of the railway in November 1885, Cornelius Van Horne had turned his focus to the construction of Canadian Pacific’s resort hotels across the country, especially the Banff Springs Hotel, which opened its doors in 1888. A savvy marketer, Van Horne and his campaign to sell the spectacular Canadian Rockies took the US and European markets by storm. He had created a Canadian Pacific brand that was so powerful it became synonymous with Canada. But the company was nevertheless aware that strong partnerships had to be developed at the destination to provide the infrastructure servicing the attractions required to promote and sell a successful resort.
Consistent, reliable carriage service was a must from the train station to the Banff Springs Hotel, along with dependable outfitters and guides catering to the guests. Since all sightseeing and exploring had to be by horseback at that time, the manager at the Banff Springs at first scrabbled together a loosely organized group of guides but soon realized that a dedicated, contracted operator was the necessary solution. He then approached his friend John Brewster, owner of the local dairy farm. John offered the services of his two eldest sons, Jim and Bill, barely in their teens. Initially offering guiding services and fishing trips, the brothers later established a horse-drawn Tally-Ho coach service to meet all trains and provide transfers to the hotel. In 1914, when the national park was opened to vehicular travel, Brewster was first in line with motorized touring cars and introduced the first buses in the 1920s.
The Brewster – Canadian Pacific partnership grew exponentially over the years, resulting in concession privileges for Brewster at Canadian Pacific properties, including the train stations in Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise and Field. The railway on numerous occasions even provided financing for Brewster’s expansion, and rescued the company from financial disaster following the First World War. Brewster’s fortunes did turn for the better until confronted with competition from ex-employee J.I. McLeod and his Rocky Mountain Tours and Transport and a struggle for sightseeing supremacy in the mountain national parks.
Brewster always had a leg up on the competition, however, because of its exclusive livery rights with Canadian Pacific to pick up and drop off at the Banff, Calgary, Lake Louise and Field train stations. Rocky Mountain Tours could drop its passengers at the station, but when picking up had to park its buses on the edge of the property line and walk its clients across the parking lot. Luggage also had to be transported to the street, which was more inconvenient for the customer.
While living at the station, I witnessed a particularly ugly day, with gusting winds and pouring rain, when a tour escort balked at walking his group off the platform and into the downpour. He demanded the Rocky Mountain Tours driver pull up to the platform and load. That’s when the day got uglier. The Brewster agent on duty, assisted by a couple of his drivers, attempted to block the group from boarding the bus. Rocky Mountain’s tour escort, a burly college student resembling a linebacker, literally swung into action and started a melee. Finally, the CPR constable arrived on the scene and separated the combatants, allowing the group to load from the platform and quickly depart. Livery rights were zealously guarded. Even though Rocky Mountain Tours had newer equipment, Brewster’s rights with the CPR often won the day in any competition for new business.
Both Brewster and Rocky Mountain Tours and Transport had been well positioned to meet the challenge when Banff experienced the unprecedented boom in tourism after the war and the Banff Springs and the Chateau Lake Louise re-opened. The Mountaineer train service from Chicago, St. Paul and Minneapolis was reinstated in 1947 and, by 1949, the number of passengers exceeded even the golden years of the 1920s. The Banff-Jasper highway opened, with the Columbia Icefield becoming the latest Rockies attraction. However, as costs including wages, fuel and new equipment increased, the total business was not enough to maintain two identical services in a 90-day season. In 1957, Brewster Transport and Rocky Mountain Tours and Transport amalgamated, ending a 36-year battle for survival.
Over those years, however, the marketing efforts of the two competitors had assisted CP in boosting the visibility of the Canadian Rockies by focusing on the American tour companies. Officially, the ironclad livery contracts made Brewster the most favoured son, but unofficially both companies were viewed positively as strong partners by the railway. And why not? Canadian Pacific had the most to gain. Everyone had to ride its trains.
Reliable transportation, sightseeing services and quality outfitters were not the only partners required to support the year-round train service to Banff. Since the Banff Springs Hotel was closed from early September to late May, other accommodations were necessary for off-season travellers, as well as visitors who could not afford the tariff at the Banff Springs Hotel. Thus, the downtown properties and businesses, catering to the middle class and year-round visitors, became CP’s most important partners and were viewed as complementary. In fact, CP consciously encouraged development of the townsite.
The Banff Springs was not a CP “partner” – it was the CPR and its story will not be told here. Many fine books have been published, but Bart Robinson’s Banff Springs: The Story of a Hotel is one of the best reads on this subject. This history is entertaining, and the anecdotes are priceless. When I was living far from Banff, Bart’s book was my go-to remedy to cure the occasional twinge of homesickness. I couldn’t even guess how many times I’ve thumbed through that book.
In 1888, the Wells family opened the Alberta Hotel, Banff’s first “downtown” hotel. In 1904, directly across the street, Banff pioneer Norman Luxton opened the King Edward Hotel. Luxton also owned the King Edward Livery and Stables, an early competitor for Brewster Transport. The original hotel burned to the ground but was replaced with a red brick structure in 1920, a famous Banff landmark that also housed the Lux Theatre.
Dave and Annie McDougall of the famous Reverend McDougall family of Morley built the Mount Royal Hotel in 1908. Jim Brewster purchased it in 1912. The hotel was an immediate success and a lucrative investment for his young and growing company. Shortly after the purchase, Brewster enlarged the dining room and added 50 guest rooms. The Mount Royal became the premier downtown property that featured a main floor veranda that extended the length of the Banff Avenue and Caribou Street frontages and a sweeping second-story balcony that overlooked the downtown landscape.
After the repeal of prohibition in 1924 in Alberta, breweries entered the hotel business, since liquor laws required all licensed premises to have at least ten hotel rooms for overnight guests. That began a spree of hotel purchases and construction as the competing breweries scrambled to corner the beer market via ownership of the dispensaries called “beer parlours.” Often the rooms were less than basic, built to conform to the letter of the law. In Banff, Calgary Breweries bought the King Edward and the original Cascade hotels, thereby giving it about 80 per cent of the draught beer market in town. A small beer parlour in the Mount Royal was its only competition. For years, Alberta’s breweries were content to be in the beer business, viewing their rooms as a small but necessary annoyance. In Banff, that meant the Mount Royal continued to be the downtown property of choice.
By 1948, Calgary Breweries had changed its attitude and rebuilt the Cascade Hotel, catering to overnight visitors as well as the tavern clientele. The “new” Cascade was advertised as the most modern hotel in Banff, boasting a coffee shop, dining room, a solarium for private functions and the famous Cascade beer parlour, with men only and ladies and escorts taverns, separated by a dividing wall. Access for men to the ladies’ side meant they had to be escorting a lady. Next door was the Cascade Dance Hall, a separate business entity but a good neighbour for the evening crowds.
Summer and winter, the downtown properties met all train arrivals with their own shuttle buses. While the passenger numbers to Banff were slim compared to summer volumes, holiday periods, long weekends, the North American Ski Championships and the Banff Winter Carnival kept the town buzzing. From Vancouver, the train was super convenient, offering a choice of two early evening departures: at 7:35 or 8:15 p.m. After a pleasant evening socializing in the club car and a good sleep in your roomette or compartment, you awoke in time for breakfast in the Rockies and an afternoon arrival in Banff, where a transfer coach and a hotel representative greeted you. It was a convenient downtown-to-downtown service. Plus, rail travel, including the sleeping accommodation, was not expensive.
While not open year-round, the Homestead Hotel was another hotel that opened earlier and closed later than the Banff Springs. Only two short blocks from the station and one block from the centre of town, the Homestead enjoyed a favoured reputation with returning visitors. The hotel was a classic wooden structure, with balconies and verandas. Set beside the main building was the Homestead Hotel Annex and the famous Homestead Restaurant and Tea Room (the site currently occupied by Melissa’s Restaurant).
When we moved to Banff, the Homestead instantly became our favourite restaurant to recommend when visitors came to town, largely because owners Earl and Enid Gammon were long-time friends of Mom and Dad. Although Earl had worked for Brewster before and after enlisting in the Canadian Army, he left to start Gammon Construction Company in Cochrane, where he’d met Mom and Dad.3 The Gammons were our welcome wagon when we moved to Banff in 1948. A daily fixture during the years we lived at the station, Earl would always park his car of the day at the platform in front of the express office. He loved big fast cars, especially his 1936 V-12 Packard Phaeton, said to have been a “mob car” in Chicago. The station newsstand was his morning coffee stop where he and Dad joined their cronies for the latest from around town. He’d allow admirers like me to inspect his pride and joy, and regale us with stories of Al Capone and the car’s fascinating history.
In 1955, addressing the need for more hotel space and anticipating the automobile boom accompanying the construction of the Trans-Canada, Earl built the Gammon Motel, directly across the street from the Homestead (on the site now occupied by the Banff Park Lodge). Billed as a deluxe motor inn, it was an immediate success. Gammon was an excellent marketer, a visionary and active politically. A huge supporter of the Banff Winter Carnival, Earl was president in 1952 and 1953 for two of the most successful carnivals ever staged. He had a larger than life profile as an active Rotarian and president of the regional association of the Conservative Party. He was a valuable partner and tireless promoter for Banff and the Canadian Rockies.