Today’s Then and Now historic comparison is of the Strome Hotel (former Selkirk Hotel) in little Strome Alberta. It shows little change after seventy one years, as you’ll see in the photo, and at the time of our visit, not open for business (sadly). The owners called it quits about the time the Covid pandemic hit. However, it’s not all bad news and since then, some new folks are working to reopen it.
Strome is on lucky Highway #13, in the east/central part of the province and was founded about 1906. This was about the time the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived and with so many towns on the prairies it happened just like this. The community has a population of a 230 or so, but in the past was a bit larger. Shrinking populations is another story often repeated out in farming country.
Strome Hotel – Selkirk Hotel Strome Alberta: 71 Years Apart. Pop history with Chris Doering & Connie Biggart (BIGDoer/Synd)
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The Selkirk Hotel, as it was originally called, dates to the late 1920s. It replaced two earlier hotels in town, the Lakeview and the Strome, both of which burned down. The location was strategically close to the railway station. That building was right across the street and at the time that’s where the action was.
The trains still run though town, but passenger service on this line ended long ago.
The Selkirk became the Strome Hotel during the second half of the 1970s. The origins of the Selkirk name are unknown to us and perhaps lost to time. The history book is silent on the subject and we found nothing else to explain it. The Strome Hotel name, of course, is self explanatory – Strome the town, incidentally, may be named after Stromeferry in Scotland.
The history book and old directories show there’s been a long list of owners. One thing we’ve found being hotel historians and being part of the Beer Parlour Project, is that turn overs in the business are high.
Owning and running a hotel is not an easy role to fill. You have to be astute with money, a bartender, dishwasher, MMA fighter, janitor, handyman, teamster, therapist, ringmaster and wear 100 other hats. The ROI is sometime good, sometimes bad and who’s the last person paid? You are! Hours are long and the pressures many. Often the owners simply burn out and then drop out.
Usually they sell, or try to sell, but sometimes there’s no takers or they don’t come right away. There might be a gap between owners and in the meantime, the building is likely to deteriorate some. These old hotels often date back a long, long time and need regular upkeep. They’re often cobbled together mechanically. With down time, it’s hard to win back customers and that’s a big hurdle too.
Incidentally, the oldest hotel visited by the Beer Parlour Project goes back to 1904 (Alix Alberta) and the newest, the late 1950s (Wildwood Alberta).
As you’ll see, the hotel looks much as it did seventy one years ago and presents a timeless scene. How many people have come and gone? How many business in downtown Strome have done the same? The world, the county, the province and Strome itself has changed in that time. All the while, this little watering hole is much as it was.
It’s not clear when rooms were last offered at the hotel, but it would seem a while ago.
A pizza place opened in the hotel soon after our brief visit to little Strome. We heard rumours of its pending arrival shortly before and looked around to see if any work was going inside, but couldn’t tell. Rob Pohl, who as you know if part of Beer Parlour Project, stopped by a couple months back, while the area and it was open then.
They hinted to Rob that it may reopen as a tavern and time will tell. We wish them luck and it’s good to see the business happening again, even if it’s on a reduced scale. It’s the only eatery in town, unless you count Slim-Jims washed down with a Dr Pepper as a meal, in which case, the gas station on the highway counts as a second.
In “downtown”, there’s really nothing much left and the hotel is now (again) a bright spot. In recent memory a grocery store up the block was once located within sight of the hotel, but it’s gone now.
The community needs a social place like this or it dies a little as a result.
The Then image comes thanks to the Molson Breweries file at the University of Calgary archives. It’s dated December 01, 1954. There’s no snow on the ground that we can see, so it must have been a mild winter to that point. One small building in downtown, in the background and on the left, appears in both images – look above the truck box in the Then image.
Molson kept a visual record of hotels they supplied and included them in their customer file. There’s hundreds of hotels in their archives, of ones long gone, and others still around. You can bet we’ll be shooting more Then & Now historic comparisons from photos pulled from that archive.
You’ll note an old wood grain elevator in the distance, in one of our photos. It’s something rare these days too and makes a good backdrop to that scene. It shouts this is the prairies. In years past, there would have been many more in close proximity to the Sekirk/Strome Hotel and no doubt some employees may have stopped in for a cold one at the hotel after work. Just one beer…
Know more about the community (new tab): Strome Alberta.
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“Criminally underrated and overlooked. A hidden gem.” Chris A.
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Date of adventure: December 1954 and May 2025. Location: Strome, Alberta. Article references and thanks: UofC Photo Archives, the book “Lanterns on the prairie – Strome Diamond Jubilee 1905-1980”, Medicine Hat & District Genealogical Society, and various old Henderson Directories.
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