Transit Hotel (Edmonton)
Coordinates: 53°35′8″N 113°26′33.6″W / 53.58556°N 113.442667°W
The Transit Hotel (known affectionately in Edmonton as The Transit) is a hotel and tavern in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It is located at the intersection of 66th street and Fort Road, in the northeast part of the city.
Opened on September 11, 1908,[1] the Transit was strategically placed as the first or last stop for travellers between Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan, and for its proximity to the recently built J.Y. Griffin slaughterhouse (later Swift's Packing Plant).
The hotel included many modern conveniences, including hot and cold water, bathrooms on the top floor, and electric lighting.
From the Edmonton Journal:
- "The hotel and the land that surrounds it have undergone many changes over the years. The hitching posts that surrounded the hotel are long gone, as are the packing plants and stockyards. Asphalt has replaced the dirt roads farmers once brought their pigs, sheep and cattle in on for slaughter. The Belvedere LRT station now sits on land where once there was a hatchery. Even the community known as Packingtown no longer exists. The area was incorporated as the Village of North Edmonton in 1910 and annexed by the city in 1912. Little remains of the hotel's original interior and exterior, although the current owners, Bob and Pauline Ruzycki, have spent a lot of time and money restoring the front facade to its original boom-town architecture, complete with a second-floor veranda, elaborate parapet and finialed roof line. The hotel was run down when they purchased it in December 1986."
The Transit has also been known to hold gerbil races and has seen only one murder in its history, over fifty years ago[2]
References
- ↑ Transit Hotel turns 100: http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/story.html?id=354c6ecc-ad88-4d2c-bc3f-d42248d65dbb
- ↑ Transit Hotel: http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/story.html?id=354c6ecc-ad88-4d2c-bc3f-d42248d65dbb