137 years at Main and Logan

Since 1873, there has been a hotel operating at the south-east corner of Main and Logan Avenue. First established as the Eureka House, it was later known as the California, the Ottawa, the White Rose, and by 1900, the Occidental Hotel. Rechristened the the New Occidental sometime in the mid-20th century, it is now officially known as the Red Road Lodge.

The Eureka Hotel was built at this corner by Alexander Logan, heir of the Logan family estate that encompassed everything between Henry and Alexander Avenue before the family subdivided and sold off much of it in the 1870s and early '80s. Next door to the Eureka in 1873 was the Point Douglas House, operated by Paul Heiminck, which kept in stock "Guinness' Porter, Bass' Ale, Carte d'or Champagne," as well as liquors, cigars, sardines, lobsters, oysters, pickles, "and everything else necessary for a lunch."

Ad for Eureka House in the Manitoba Free Press, January 17, 1874.

Another ad placed in the Nor'wester (the first newspaper in the West when it began publishing in 1859, it was briefly resurrected in 1874 under the ownership of E.L. Barber, advertised that the Eureka House's proprietor Joseph Devlin had enlarged the building, so that "travellers and the public generally" could be entertained "in first class-style." Board was available by the week, with or without lodging, and the hotel's stables were "large and commodious," Devlin keeping "constantly on hand the best of hay & feed."

In 1882, the hotel operated under the name California, and according to a profile on the city's hotels in the Winnipeg Sun in September '82, the California was a wooden structure with 12 bedrooms, a dining room, and bar.

At some point between the mid 1880s and the early 1890s the hotel was either upgraded or totally rebuilt. It is likely that it was rebuilt, since the Sun claims the building was wooden, while the fire insurance map from 1905 shows the hotel was of brick construction.

West side of Main at Logan Avenue, 1892. Credit

Ad in the Winnipeg Telegram for a Christmas dinner, December 24, 1904. Credit

In the 1890s, the hotel, by then called the White Rose, was purchased by a Jewish merchant named David Ripstein. Born in Russia, Ripstein came to Winnipeg in 1881, and was a wholesale liquor dealer prior to purchasing the White Rose, changing the name to the Occidental Hotel in 1894--the year Alexander Logan, scion of the old Red River family, died. At the turn of the century, Ripstein frequently found himself in court for various (usually liquor-related) offences--a common occurrence for small businessmen in an age of strict liquor sales and Lord's Day laws. He also served as President of Shaary Zedek Synagogue, then located at the corner of King Street and Henry Avenue.

Ad placed in the Nor'wester, August 13, 1895. Credit

In 1903, Ripstein built a three-storey addition at the back of the Occidental on Logan Avenue, and three years later built an adjacent building, called the Ripstein Block, at the corner of Logan and Martha Street. It was here, at #1-48 Martha Street, where Ripstein lived in 1911 with his wife Mary, his mother-in-law Annie Shapra, his two year-old grandson Clarence Ripstein, and a domestic servant named Sophie Magnason.

Drawing of the Ripstein Block, which appeared in the Winnipeg Telegram in April, 1906. Credit

Fire Insurance Map from 1905 showing the Occidental Hotel, with the first of David Ripstein's Logan Avenue additions shown. The small wooden buildings on the opposite side of Logan can be seen in the 1892 photo above. They would be replaced the following year by the five-storey Bon-Accord Block, designed by the architect A.M. Fraser.

The Ripstein Block and Occidental Hotel, seen from Logan Avenue, 1918. Credit

Entrance to the hotel, 1918. Credit

Given its relative old age and outdated floor plan, the Occidental by 1914 would certainly not have had the appeal of larger, newer hostileries on Main such as the Royal Alexandra, the McLaren, and even the Bell, to say nothing of the Marlborough, St. Regis, and other more uptown establishments. It is likely that the Occidental's decline in status began long before 1945, the year that the hotel advertised daily rates of $1.00 (about $13.00 today). But as transportation patterns began moving away from railways and Main Street at a rapid pace after World War II, the Occidental began to assume something of a rough character. When one Main Street old-timer was asked which was the roughest hotel on the strip in the early 1960s, he responded without delay: "the Occidental. Maybe the Brunswick [Main and Rupert], too. But the Occidental was bad."

The "new" Occidental Hotel, circa 1980, a time when it was famously the epicentre of Main Street's roughest and wildest years between 1965 and 1999. Credit

In the early years of this century, the Occidental was purchased by Richard Walls who, much to the chargrin of the socially responsible Manitoba Liquor Control Commission and the community-building Manitoba Lotteries Corp., shut down the bar and removed its VLTs. Today, it operates essentially as a quiet and seemingly well-run hotel for long-term tenants upstairs, with space on the ground floor used by different organizations. The most notable of these is The Tallest Poppy restaurant, a popular eating spot which was opened by Point Douglas entrepreneur Talia Syrie in 2006.