Description of Historic Place

The Grand Hotel in Shaunavon is a Municipal Heritage Property consisting of two municipal lots on Third Avenue East in Shaunavon. The property features a two-storey brick-and-tile building situated on one of the town's main thoroughfares.

Heritage Value

The heritage value of the Grand Hotel lies in its status as one of the only surviving examples of the many hotels that were erected in Shaunavon after the arrival of the railroad in 1913. The hotel's modest design and restrained use of ornamentation on the exterior are typical of many hotels built during the prairie boom-time period in the early part of the twentieth century.

The heritage value of the Grand Hotel also lies in its connection to a vital part of Shaunavon's social history. Since being built in 1929, the hotel has witnessed some tragic events. On March 16, 1940, Sgt. Arthur Barker of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was murdered in the rotunda. Less than two months later Mah Hop, one of the hotel's owners, was one of two people killed in an altercation in the same rotunda. The Grand Hotel and more particularly the rotunda provide a focal point from which some of Shaunavon’s local history, however tragic it may be, can be interpreted.

Source:

Town of Shaunavon Bylaw No. 99-15.

Character-Defining Elements

The heritage value of the Grand Hotel resides in the following character-defining elements:
-those features that define it as a typical boom-town building built in the early part of the twentieth century, including its simplified design, little ornamentation, the parapet, and the brick building material that includes remnants of a painted "Grand Hotel" sign;
-the interior rotunda.