The Seymour and New National have served their last drinks

Sure, these two “first class” establishments, the Seymour and New National in Hanna Alberta, are called hotels but for the last few decades mostly catered to the drinking crowd. It’s booze where the money is, although the rooms above may have been rented out at times as extended stay (often social) housing, but certainly NOT a place for tourists or travellers. It’s been a long, long time since these buildings were hotels in the traditional sense.

Once nice places to stay they are located in the centre of a once vibrant but now quiet downtown. While we explored the two buildings, we saw few cars and even fewer people.

Hanna was founded in 1912/1913 with the coming of the railway (Canadian Northern Railway, later folded into he CNR – this line is now closed) and both these hotels date from this era. Large and modern for the time, these substantial wood framed structures remained open for nearly a century. That’s not a bad run I guess.

The first we’ll look at it the Seymour. It’s a fairly plain building, although I am sure if one were to peel away the paint (much of that work already started thanks to time) there would something special underneath. It sits right in the corner of Railway Avenue (every small town had an avenue so named) and Centre Street, aka McCrea Drive – both are used.

This town’s former railway station used to sit across the road, putting this hotel in an envious position. As the first one seen by those coming off the trains, this no doubt brought them lots of business. In the early years the town boomed and more than likely so did the Seymour Hotel and its rivals.

As the years passed the world changed but this hotel didn’t. Not by much anyway. Sure it got a new coat of paint every now and then but otherwise stayed the same as it always was. Once modern and contemporary with time it became simply old fashioned, a dive hotel in a forgotten corner of town. This change was not something that happened overnight and in fact probably took many decades.

Like all these old hotels, the Seymour had a tavern, or beer parlour as they were called, likely its main source of income and catering to the working man. Near the end the rooms were often long term accommodations for elderly types (usually men) not quite ready for the old folks home.

Years of neglect take their toll and over time these building fall into disrepair. Soon they become uninhabitable and then close, too costly to update or repair. This is the fate of many such buildings in small prairie towns. One by one their ranks thin.

It’s not clear when the Seymour closed, but given the pictures this author has seen online, it appears to have happened a few years ago. In that time it has sat boarded up and forgotten, its fate uncertain. There is talk of it being demolished, but it’s only talk so far. Let’s hope there is a better plan in place than that as it’s a big a part of Hanna’s history.

We scared a feral cat while exploring, or rather it scared us, and with turbo-kitty comes a turbo-heartbeat.

The other hotel in this report is the New National and it’s a few blocks away. Like its rival it has also been around for a century or so and has been closed for a few years. Based upon news clippings found while researching this article, this establishment was more upscale than the Seymour, and in fact it was hailed as the “finest”, a bold statement if applied today. In fact, it was modern for the time (emphasis on time) but expectations change. The building was missing many of its signs, which is too bad as often these were quite elaborate

Over the years the New National changed, or actually failed to change as the world did so around it and in that time fewer and fewer people stopped in. The public did not want an old fashioned creaky hotels right downtown and instead a modern motel along the highway, with parking for their car. And so the customers left and the building deteriorated and near the end, it was simply just another dive hotel with a dive bar, catering to locals.

Then abruptly the New National closed. One can safely assume that it required too much work to keep it up to standards and the money coming in was no where near enough to finance such an endeavour. It hung on until 2011, however, just shy of its centenary.

And so these two sit, empty and to some eye sores with broken windows, probably too expensive to tear down. There has been talk of just such a thing happening however and it’s possible they may not have much time left. One question comes to mind though – if torn down, what will take their place? An empty lot? It’s not like there is need for more building space in an already depressed downtown.

Perhaps they can be renovated and restored to their former glory as heritage hotels. These seem to be gaining in popularity (check out Nelson BC) and in fact Team BIGDoer have stayed at one, in Ymir BC. That’s just one possibility. Of course it’s easy for us to make suggestions, since we’re not the one putting up the money. Regardless, it’d be nice if someone could save them as these type of places are an important connection to the past.

Till then, the Seymour and the New National have served their last drinks.

Update June 02nd, 2021: The New National has was demolished shortly after this article was posted. This piece was also reworked a bit recently as it contained some poorly worded passages. That damn author!

To see some other heritage hotels…
The Nash aka the National Hotel.
The Notorious American Hotel.

to see some old railway remains not far from the Seymour Hotel, go here…
Hanna roundhouse and turntable.

If you’d like to know more about these places, by all means contact us!

Date: August 2013.
Location: Hanna, AB.

The closed Seymour Hotel in Hanna.

The old neon sign will probably never light again.

On the corner of Railway Avenue and Centre Street…or is it McCrea Drive…or both?

The Tavern has served its last drink.

Old junk scattered about.

Built about 100 years ago, it was once a proud establishment.

A couple blocks from the Seymour is the New National Hotel.

If they tear down the building, I hope they save the sign.

It sits empty and forgotten, its fate uncertain.

This building is close to 100 years old.

What does the future have in store for the New National?

The Seymour (under the Hanna sign) from the nearby abandoned CNR rail line.