The Transit Hotel’s Origins
12720 Fort Road
Builder: Patrick Dwyer
Constructed: 1908
Patrick O. Dwyer was an eternal opportunist. Seeing Edmonton didn’t have a jockey club, he took it on himself to form one. Seeing the Edmonton Radial Railway expand, he took it on himself to help finance its growth to the Eastend, pledging $1,000 to the cause. Seeing business interests not properly represented by City Council, he took it on himself to run. Seeing that Edmonton could be an industrial powerhouse, he took it on himself to make it one.
Dwyer was an American. Born in Massachusetts, he had spent much of his early adulthood in the Midwest. It was in his travels, prowling back-and-forth between Cleveland and Cincinnati, that he developed an interest in a growing industry: meatpacking. Few fields were as booming or lucrative, and with a bit of luck Dwyer was able to get in on the ground floor. Within a short time he had become a self-made man and was widely regarded as one of the industry’s preeminent capitalists and stockyard experts.
A chance visit to Edmonton in 1906 had convinced him its potential. “Satisfied that this was an ideal location for a huge stockyard, packing house, and meat canning establishment,” he purchased hundreds of acres to the city’s northeast and set to work — it was no less than “a Chicago packing town in embryo.” By 1907 an all-brick packing factory, to be run under Dwyer’s own brand, had begun to take shape.
The audaciousness quickly attracted attention. One of the Dominion’s largest packers, the James Young Griffin Co. of Winnipeg was certainly interested, and had soon negotiated a sale for the still unfinished factory. Their commitment, coupled with the arrival of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway shortly after, saw Dwyer’s idea of “Packingtown” come to fruition. People flocked to his little enclave north of Edmonton and a small community sprouted up to support the plant and its workers.
What the area lacked, however, was permanence. For all of Dwyer’s grand ambitions, North Edmonton was little more than a packing plant, a few homes, and the odd commercial building. Lodging options were sparse and most that existed were nothing more than tents or shacks. So, Dwyer took it upon himself to set an example.
North Edmonton’s heart lay at the acutely cornered intersection of Edmonton Avenue and Norton Street. Going south on Norton brought you to the front doorstep of Griffin’s plant. Heading west on Edmonton brought you to the eponymous city, while east was the long dirt trail to Fort Saskatchewan. Surely, no better place existed for a hotel, Dwyer must have thought. For a cool $3,000, he snatched up the coveted lot and began building.
When Dwyer’s “Transit Hotel” opened on September 11th, 1908, it certainly made an impression — the $50,000 he spent saw to that. Naturally, it was “the most imposing structure, outside the plant itself, that has yet been erected in North Edmonton,” owing to its “very imposing appearance with… white front and plate-glass windows.” Provided with City water, electric light, and telephone, “North Edmonton’s progressive hostelry,” was soon “frequently taxed to its utmost capacity,” despite its space of fifty persons.
Perhaps wishing to focus on other endeavours, hotel operations were turned over not soon after opening. An ex-Nebraskan, Mr. James Ryan, served as full-time hotelier. Dwyer remained sole owner, however, and the Transit became one of just a dozen lucrative properties the ex- Massachusettsan would come own.
His endeavours to build a packing town from the ground-up paid off — within three years, North Edmonton had become the region’s economic powerhouse. Swift’s Canadian, a division of the American meatpacking giant, entered the scene in 1909, buying out Griffin’s business. In 1910, Dwyer’s little fiefdom gained village status, and by the following year had attracted the attention of another meatpacking great, the Patrick Burns Co. of Calgary, who began operations shortly thereafter.
While Dwyer had other successes in life, it would be the creation of North Edmonton for which he was most remembered. Following his sudden death on August 12th, 1924, the Edmonton Journal described the man’s legacy. While it had “required some some vision… to see the possibilities of such an industry here,” the paper recalled, “Mr. Dwyer had no doubt about these and it was only because he so persistently urged his views, upon the capitalists who sought interest, that they made the the large investment which has been such a factor in our upbuilding.”
As for his hotel, the North Edmonton Industrial Review quipped that it must’ve looked like a folly. “At the time the only buildings in the vicinity were farms [which] were situated at fairly regular intervals of half-a-mile… But as things turned out it was just one further demonstration of western foresight.”
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Sources:
“Two Race Meets For Edmonton is Club’s Proposal,” Edmonton Journal, September 15, 1913.
“New Radial Proposal Same As Former One,” Edmonton Bulletin, August 17, 1909.
“Self-Defence Plummer Plea in Murder Case,” Edmonton Journal, October 13, 1916.
“Dwyer And Revillion New Financial Firm,” Edmonton Journal, April 29, 1910.
“Edmonton’s Call For Industry,” Edmonton Bulletin, November 26, 1906.
“Million Dollar Packing Plant,” Edmonton Journal, August 31, 1907.
Jac MacDonald, “Packingtown Watering Hole Once Sold for a Dollar,” Edmonton Journal, January 30, 1987.
“Rapid Growth of North Edmonton,” Edmonton Bulletin, August 7, 1909.
“Packingtown is Now a Reality,” Edmonton Bulletin, September 14, 1908.
“Small Reductions Were Granted To Few Appellants,” Edmonton Journal, August 28, 1918.
“Here And There,” Edmonton Journal, August 14, 1924.
