GRAND UNION HOTEL
Section 15, Plan A, Block 60, Lots 31-33
316 – 320 NINTH AVENUE S.E.
(Now the site of the City Hall underground Civic Plaza parkade)

Remarks: The hotels horse and carriage in front.

Date: 1914

In 1905, one of Calgary’s newest centrally located hotels was constructed, on what was known as Whisky Row or Atlantic Avenue, in full view of approaching trains, in hopes of attracting disembarking passengers. Designed by the architect of the sandstone City Hall, William M. Dodd, the structure was built by Alfred Moodie and Celestin Thibault who had entered into a partnership on Friday, March 17, 1905. Their firm, Moodie & Co., was formed with the intent of carrying on trade and business as hotel developers/keepers.

Source: Page 184, Henderson’s 1906 City Directory

The idea of the proprietors Messrs. Moodie & Co., in erecting the Grand Union, was to be strictly First Class in every detail. “The handsomest building west of the Great Lakes.”
There was 62 rooms, with a bathroom and lavatory on each floor which rented for $1.50 per day. Its two long south facing spacious verandahs, provided a splendid resting place for guests and allowed them to view the passing parade of Ninth Avenue, as well as superb views of the distant Rocky Mountains with the snowy peaks shining in the sunlight. It even had a limousine service to take guests and their baggage to and from the train station two blocks away.
Inside the hotel there was a large rotunda, grand staircase, a first class bar, parlour, smoking, reading and writing rooms, the latter being on the first floor. The furnishings and fittings throughout were of the best. No convenience for guests in this three storied hostelry were left unthought-of. Steam heat, electric lights, hot and cold baths, etc. The dining room deserving of special mention, it being large, well-lighted, handsomely decorated and capable of seating seventy-five people.
In 1906, Alfred Moodie a retired jockey, sold his interest in the hotel to Celestin Thibault and worked as the General Manager of Thibault’s Calgary Hotel Co. for approximately one year after the sale. He became an alderman in 1907 and died in office on Saturday, January 30, 1909.
Seven years before Canadian Pacific Railway opened the luxury Palliser Hotel, the Grand Union Hotel offered excellent dining room service and a lavish Christmas menu with a little something for all tastes. In addition to the familiar vegetables like corn on the cob, asparagus tips, cream or French fried potatoes, were the more sophisticated appetizers and entrees as well as Black Tea, Green Tea, Coffee.

Grand Union Holel Christmas Menu

By 1912, the Grand Union Hotel advertising their services as American plan, (room and all meals), was doing a thriving business. It took 25 employees, including seven in the bar room, to operate the 62 room, three storey, mansard roofed hotel, for owners A.C.H. LaPierre and George A. Anthony.
On Tuesday afternoon, April 29, 1913, Lacey Bros., of Fort William, acquired the Grand Union Hotel from LaPierre and Anthony, paying $65,000 for a lease of eight years, the interior furnishings and the good will. The hotel had been purchased by the former owners the year before for $40,000.

Date: [ca. 1925] Remarks: Calgary Stampede parade on 9th Avenue SE in front of Lincoln Hotel; sign on float reads: “The iron horse shrieks across the prairie reaching Calgary, August 11, 2026 – contributed by Canadian Pacific.” Note: The main floor of the hotel has been enclosed with brick walls.

By 1920, many of Calgary’s early hotels had changed hands or were under new management, offsetting age and image by dressing up to attract/ win their share of inn-bound traffic. In 1921, Joseph Warne had control of the Grand Union Hotel and the concrete/ stone foundation and whole building was overhauled. The main floor was enclosed with brick walls on surface.
The hotel was next “beautifully furnished throughout by the Hudson’s Bay Company,” had hot and cold water in every room, private baths in some, and was accepting “reservations by phone or wire.”
By 1922, Mr. Warne even changed the name of the Grand Union to the Lincoln Hotel, to brighten the welcome mat, “Where Everybody Stays.” As Calgary’s newest hotel entrepreneur, Mr. Warne in fact lived in the Lincoln.

Source: Wrigley’s 1922 Alberta Directory, Calgary, Page 168

In 1928, the Lincoln Hotel became the Lethbridge Union Hotel. Thomas Longworth was the new manager, and he advertised this hostelry as “The Workingman’s Hotel.” A new boiler was installed in 1929.

Lethbridge Union Hotel

Source: Henderson’s 1952 Calgary City Directory, Page 586

In 1940, Fred A. Gregory next ran the Lethbridge Union Hotel for the next 33 years and in 1949 renamed his Lethbridge Union the Grand Hotel.

Grand Hotel, January 08, 2026

The hotel, just down the street from the Calgary Tower gradually lost its lustre and balconies, looked far from Grand, and was closed at noon on Monday, October 01st, 1973.
Although the women still drank in a nine-tabled parlour off to the side of the bar- in the ladies section, Mr. Gregory never did get around to installing a women’s powder room in the main tavern, after the liquor laws were changed to allow for mixed drinking. At the age of 76 and as one of Alberta’s pioneer hotelmen, Mr. Gregory said, “in the Grand’s best years the customers in the tavern, (mainly railway men and construction workers) would down 270 kegs a month.” Big Louie, a long time Grand Hotel bar customer, drank there up until its last evening, Saturday, September 29th, 1973. It was his usual practice to put away 30 or 40 glasses of draught beers and then go off to work.
“It was a pretty quiet bar” said Gregory. “Our customers were working people who went to bed early because they had to get up early.”
At the time of closing, you could still rent one of the hotel’s 62 rooms for a low $4.00 a night.
In the late 1970’s, Mayor Ross Alger, supported tearing down the hotel to make way for a more modern Civic Centre.

The Civic Plaza parkade is a far quieter scene than when this stretch of 9th
Avenue S.E. was known as Whisky Row.

The hotel was demolished shortly thereafter in preparation for redevelopment of the area. In 1986, a year after the official opening of the Municipal Building the underground Civic Plaza parkade was built on the site.

Researched and compiled by:  M.P. (Pat) Hooper
Word Processing by: Susan Hooper

SOURCES CONSULTED
CPL Local History Room
(Old Clipping Files)
Glenbow Library
(Clipping File – Hotels - Alberta and
Henderson’s Calgary City Directories)