Moose Jaw's CPR dining hall went up in flames
In the summer of 1921, workmen digging under the CPR station platform in preparation for laying steam pipes for a new station could hardly believe what they had unearthed. There in the excavation was a long-buried cache of ancient ale — and many of the bottles were still intact.
Word of the discovery spread like wildfire, and soon a big crowd, crazed by five years of Prohibition, was hanging over the wooden railing surrounding the excavation, ready to jump in at the first opportunity.
A news reporter attracted to the site by the general commotion, thought a workman had fallen into an old cesspool which pioneers claimed was under the station platform. Then a workman emerged from the excavation smacking his lips and wiping his mouth as the aroma of well-brewed hops wafted over the crowd.
The ale was found among charred timbers, ashes and cream-coloured bricks immediately recognized by the old-timers as the remains of the CPR dining hall which once stood on the site and was destroyed by fire nearly 25 years before. One of the spectators remembering the dining hall in its heyday, said the brew would be pretty good because "in those days there weren't any of this here domestic stuff, only imports." And another onlooker who was fortunate enough to get a taste of the long-buried brew said the ale had quite a kick and that "Josiah's mule, Maud, came nowhere near it!"
The CPR dining hall, erected soon after rail construction reached Moose Jaw Creek in 1882, was one of the first substantial buildings in the townsite. It catered primarily to railway passengers whose purses could not afford the higher priced dining car meals. For years it served as the town's social centre — banquets, balls, theatricals, political rallies and meetings of every sort took place under its roof. It even served as the town hospital during a "fever" epidemic in February 1889.
Sir Sandford Fleming, engineer-in-chief for the surveys of the CPR and promoter of standard time, was having breakfast in the dining hall in August 1883 when he read in the Moose Jaw News about Cree chief Piapot"s complaint to the lieutenant-governor that smoke from the CPR locomotives was ruining the West. And a month later the local Conservatives gathered at the dining hall for a lively luncheon and entertainment for Sir Hector Langevin, federal minister of public works.
Abiel "Dad" Smith who managed the dining hall for the CPR, was well known throughout western Canada for his hospitality. An English innkeeper, he came to Canada in 1855 and continued innkeeping at several Ontario points. One place was Stratford where his wide circle of friends included station agent William Whyte, later Sir William Whyte, vice-president of the CPR, and a telegraph messenger named Tom, later known as Thomas A. Edision, the inventor of the electric light and phonograph.
A connoisseur of fine wines and liquors, Smith was master of beverages at a grand banquet held in Toronto to mark the visit of the Prince of Wales (Queen Victoria's son and heir) to the that city in 1860.
As the West opened for settlement, Smith, his wife Elizabeth and their family moved to Winnipeg where he established the well-known Potter House, a hostelry that was the favourite rendezvous of British remittance men.
In 1889, Whyte, Smith's friend from 6Stratford days and now the manager of the CPR's western lines, remembered Smith's innkeeping abilities and persuaded him to come to Moose Jaw to manage the CPR's dining hall.
In early May 1898, a spark from a passing locomotive landed on the roof of the dining hall and the landmark was soon engulfed in flames.
Tasukenupawi of the Moose Jaw Sioux encampment, affectionately known as Emma by the town's residents, was the first to notice the blaze and report it.
Neither the town's chemical engine — "useless as usual," commented the local Times — nor the CPR's firefighting apparatus was effecdtive, and the dining hall was reduced to a gutted ruin.
Smith and his family who had living quarters on the upper floor of the two-storey hostelry, lost all their possessions in the fire except a grandfather clock, a family heirloom. But in the frantic efforts to get the clock out of the burning building, its lovely mahogany case was damaged beyond repair.
The fire-gutted dining hall was razed and the site leveled in preparation for the CPR's new station, opened in 1899, which would incorporate hotel facilities and a large dining room under the management of Abiel Smith.
And buried in the rubble under the station's platform was Smith's ale which wouldn't see the light of day until 1921 when the CPR was getting ready to build its third and last station at Moose Jaw.
