A New Year, 100 Years Ago

Posted on 7 January 2022 by Vernon Museum

Group photo of the members of a local hockey team posing on the ice on Kalamalka Lake in 1922. Back row, left to right: Jack Sadler, Graham Ferguson, Charles Sadler, and Lionel Locke. Front row, left to right: George Belsey and Albert Belsey.

Hello, 2022

Another year has begun under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the Omicron variant causing an increase in case numbers and a return to heightened health-and-safety measures, it can feel like we are right back where we were almost two years ago, in March of 2020.

As difficult as it can be to consider the passing of time on a longer scale, especially when our everyday is plagued with uncertainty, it can provide a sense of perspective; no matter how bad things might seem now, they too shall pass.

100 years ago: A civic Election

100 years ago, in January of 1922, the City of Vernon was ringing in the New Year with a civic election. On January 5, the Vernon News sullenly reported that although the election of the City Council, School Trustees, and Police Commissioner was set for the following Thursday, the general populace seemed to be taking little interest in the whole event. What generated the most stir was that a woman, Elsie Richards, was nominated for a School Trustee position, a first for the city. Although Mrs. Richards was not successful in her bid, it was a positive step forward.

A daring robbery

That same month, a small group of robbers broke into Vernon’s Government Liquor Store through the building’s main entrance, made their way upstairs, smashed the locks on the storage room doors, and took two cases of Scotch and one of Rye Whiskey. The store manager George Brazier was not overly upset by the robbery, because the thieves’ poor taste meant that they had made off with the cheaper brands of Whiskey.

Princes, pirates, and princesses, oh my!

A children’s costume party was held by the Vernon chapter of the I.O.D.E. (the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire) at the local armoury. The children dressed as knights, pirates, and princesses were said to have acted the part admirably, as if they had “been lifted from the story book page, or brought to Vernon from some far away romantic land in a swift airplane just for the occasion.” The evening raised nearly two hundred dollars towards supporting the widows and families of those who served in World War One.

Mild weather and winter sports

The first few days of January 1922 were relatively mild in temperature, with highs just below freezing and lows of -10°C. But a fine ice and snow season meant that local curlers, skaters, and skiers were able to enjoy their chosen winter sport. Meanwhile, the first hockey game of the season, held at a local rink between Vernon and Armstrong, saw the former achieve a quick and clean victory.

To explore more of Vernon’s history, check out our other blog posts!

Gwyneth Evans, Research and Communications Coordinator

Historic Kalamalka Hotel

Posted on 15 January 20211 February 2021 by Vernon Museum

WIld nights at the Kal

January 15, 2021

The Vernon Winter Carnival is beginning in just over two weeks, and for those of us who have been starved for a change—albeit a safe one—to our repetitive lockdown lives, it couldn’t come too soon.

This year’s Carnival theme of “Wild West” fits in quite well with our mandate here at the Greater Vernon Museum and Archives.

While this area was home to the Indigenous Syilx people for centuries, the place that came to be known as Vernon began as a small, sleepy “cow town”.

The Kal Hotel, the year it opened in 1892

Many of the stories preserved within our walls tell of life back in its frontier days.

The hub of social activity in Vernon during this time was the Kalamalka, or Kal, Hotel. This impressive piece of architecture was built in 1892 by the Land and Development Company for a cost of $19,000. The new hotel was named in honour of local indigenous chief Kalamalka (this being the anglicized spelling and pronunciation). The hotel’s interior was complete with a billiard room, bar and ladies parlour, while the exterior boasted tennis courts and a vegetable garden.

In his book “Valley of Youth,” colourful local historian and photographer C.W. Holliday describes the Kal Hotel as the local social centre of Vernon, saying that “here one might meet celebrities and interesting people from all over the world.” One of the favourite places for locals and visitors alike to relax was the hotel’s cozy lounge, where they could gather around a large open fireplace and enjoy a favorite drink carried over from the bar on cold winter nights.

Despite the tendency for the hotel to be considered the go-to spot for “festive and convivial gatherings,” the wife of the hotel’s first manager, Mrs. Meaken, ran a tight ship. If she felt the evening’s proceedings were becoming too disorderly, she had the disturbing habit of appearing in the doorway of the billiard room dressed in her nightgown. “Gentlemen,” she would say sternly, “it is time to go to bed.” A gloomy silence would then descend over the room, as the men packed up and shuffled home. No one, it seems, ever refused her orders.

Another story recalls Mr. Meaken, who, unlike his wife, was said to be meek and mild, took full advantage of the Missus being out of town and had a little too much to drink. While under the influence, he had the brilliant idea of bringing a horse in from outside and riding it around the billiard table. One can only imagine what Mrs. Meaken would have thought if she had seen this spectacle.

Holliday is careful to add that although these stand-out moment’s in the hotel’s career naturally stick in his memory, most of the time the gatherings were quiet and composed, and this Wild Western hotel was exactly what it claimed to be—a comfortable family venue.

For more tales of Vernon’s “Wild West”, join us for the GVMA Winter Carnival event, Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch…

Gwyn Evans

Vernon in 1921

Posted on 11 January 202113 January 2021 by Vernon Museum

the more things change…

January 11, 2021

Time passed strangely in 2020.

It felt like both the slowest and fastest year, with long periods of time spent following the same routine, in the same environment, day-after-day, while a decade’s worth of monumental historical events were occurring concurrently around the world.

Working in a museum in some ways can cause one to lose a sense of linear time.

Sometimes, after working in the archives all day, for example, one might almost expect to see horses and buggies, instead of car, trundling up and down the streets.

Looking East over Vernon in 2921

With this skewed sense of reality, 100 years ago might not seem like such a long time, but a lot has changed in Vernon since then. Our city in 1921 would be almost unrecognizable today.

In 1921, B.C.’s population has just reached over half a million. Meanwhile, Vernon was home to a mere 3649 people. Washing machines cost between $20 and $30, and Fruitatives-which contained a small amount of strychnine-and Minard’s Liniment were touted as cure-alls.

Bags of oats cost $0.35 and tins of salmon could be purchased for 10 cents. The year’s model of Hupmobile was sold at the Vernon Garage, while the Megaw-Smithers Motor Company competed with Chevrolet’s FB-50.

“The Molly Coddle,” “Lessons in Love,” and “Made in Heaven” played at the Empress Theatre, while hosted speakers presented on important topics such as the League of Nations, Bolshevism, and using alfalfa as a cover crop.

As sternwheelers plied the waters of Okanagan Lake, a nearby neighborhood was finally granted a name. Following a public competition, Mr. W.L. Forrester was awarded $25.00 for proposing the name “Bella Vista” for the new development overlooking the lake.

In 1921, Vernon hosted its first May Day fete and ball. Organized by the women’s institute, the program at Polson Park was complete with maypole dances, children’s sports, refreshments, balloons, a hayseed band, a parade, and the crowning of May Queen Helen Cochrane.

In October, a new flour mill was opened by the Okanagan Farmer’s Milling Company on 32nd Street, and, in November, poppies were sold and worn for the first time.

Although a lot might have changed in 100 years, some things have remained the same. Vernonites grumbled about a lack of parking and the high-cost of rent, advertisers made outlandish claims, classes were overcrowded, coddling moths plagued farmers, and poppies were pinned on jackets and sweaters in remembrance.

In a year that has been often termed “unprecedented” , it may (or may not) be reassuring to keep in mind that old adage: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”