This grand hotel-turned-hospital was closed in 1922 and torn
down in 1928.
Rocky Mountain Sanatorium, 1912. Photo: James B Sutherland
collection
It was replaced by the Turtle Mountain Playground in 1941, a
motel, restaurant, dancehall and swimming pool that was
popular with residents and visitors until it closed in the 1980s
and was demolished in 1991. The owners also held one of
Canada's earliest Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises (circa 1958)
and developed a simpler recipe for chicken gravy in its kitchen
which, after the personal approval of the Colonel himself, was
adopted across the chain.
Historical
Walking Tour
Of
Frank
(Follow the riverside path downstream back to the bridge, and
follow the sidewalk back to the Art Gallery.)
Crowsnest Pass
Doors Open & Heritage Festival
This pamphlet was produced
by the Crowsnest Heritage Initiative
Frank - A Disappearing Town
The original site of Frank, North West Territories (later
Alberta), was between Turtle Mountain and the railway
tracks, next to the region's first coal mine. Town founder
Henry Frank hosted its grand opening in 1901, a big splashy
event attended by the Premier and his Public Works
minister, and included sports games, a banquet, and tours
of the new mine. Frank quickly grew to be the principal
town within the Crowsnest Pass, symbolized by its
impressive mine works, tipple and powerhouse, as well as
five hotels, a dozen businesses, a two-story school, the
regional post office and a mansion for the mine general
manager. Even the great slide of 1903 could not slow things
down; in 1905 construction began in the north subdivision
(the present town) and included a zinc smelter, a large
resort hotel and dozens of new houses. What great promise
for the “Pittsburgh of Canada”...
It's all gone now.
------The Historical Walking Tour of Frank starts at the Allied
Arts Gallery, on Highway 3 at 148 Street. A tour map is in
the centre of this booklet.
This interpretive walk is about 800 metres in length along
concrete sidewalks, with a further one kilometre option
along sidewalks and a flat trail. Both are suitable for persons
with mobility limitations. Please respect private property
while on this walking tour.
structure served as the roof over Frank's skating rink, before
being demolished in 1923 for materials salvage.
From the sidewalk, look carefully in the trees and brush for
remains of the brick and stone foundation on either side of the
gas pipeline right-of-way. A partially-unroofed brick flue (best
viewed from outside the Goat Mountain Get-a-way gate) runs up
the hillside behind, which led to the base of its former 34m high
steel chimney. The smelter office building dates from April 1905
and is the oldest surviving structure in Frank. It was extensively
renovated in 1993 and now serves as the office and residence for
Goat Mountain Get-a-way.
(Continue about 400 metres along the sidewalk across the
highway bridge to the large graveled parking lot. Cross the
parking lot to the picnic shelter and the interpretive sign “Sulphur
Springs” behind the trees.)
12. Rocky Mountain Sanatorium (former site present parking lot)
Around 1880 Samuel Lee, a rancher from east of the Crowsnest
Pass, 'discovered' a cold sulphur spring at the base of Turtle
Mountain. Lee erected a log guest house for those using the
springs for their supposed curative powers, the first tourist
facility in the Crowsnest Pass. In 1905, the springs property was
purchased by the Canadian-American Coal and Coke Company.
A two storey hotel at the springs was replaced in 1910 by a
luxurious three storey hotel built here on the river, named the
Rocky Mountain Sanatorium. The springs water was piped to the
hotel basement where it was heated in tubs for guests. In 1917
the Canadian government purchased the hotel and used it as a
convalescence hospital for soldiers returned from the battlefields
of World War One. An unintended sideline for their recovery
was the nearby ‘red-light’ district, across the river on a low hill to
the northwest (towards Blairmore). Veterans from the hospital
dubbed this location “Hill 60” after a World War One landmark
in the Ypres Salient in France.
10. Union Hotel/Frank Hotel
1. Frank Hall (present Art Gallery)
(former site - present Pure Country Saloon)
Probably built in 1915 as a wine and spirits store for the Fernie
Mountain Supply Company, this brick building is one of the few
surviving old commercial structures in Frank. It served as the
Frank school between 1921 and 1957, then as the village office
and hall for the shrinking community. Today the Crowsnest Pass
Allied Arts Association operates a year-round gallery.
The Union Hotel was built in 1902 on the main street of the old
Frank townsite, and was one of five hotels built in Frank before
World War One. It was moved to this location in 1914, was
renamed the Frank hotel, and primarily housed CPR crews. With
the end of Prohibition (a provincial ban on alcohol) in 1924, a
bar, restaurant and dancehall were added. The Frank Hotel
operated until 1957 when it was gutted by fire and torn down.
(continue on the sidewalk for 60 metres, back to the Art Gallery
and the end of the Walking Tour. If you wish to continue on a
further optional 1km loop, then follow the highway sidewalk past
the interpretive sign “Frank” for another 130m.)
11. Zinc Smelter (foundation) and Smelter Office
(present Goat Mountain Get-a-way office)
Built in 1905, Canada’s first zinc smelter was planned to be
North America’s largest. The Canadian Metal Company hoped
to take advantage of local coal, and rail in concentrated zinc ore
from southeast British Columbia. But the company experienced
technical and financial difficulties, and the smelter never went
into commercial production. For many years the empty
2. Blais/Ruzicka Store (present Frank Slide Liquor)
This building was constructed in 1914 as a replacement for the
A.E.Blais general store in the old Frank townsite. Blais operated
it until 1929 when it was purchased by F.A.Ruzicka. The store
closed in 1955 and the building was used sporadically until
extensively restored under the Alberta Main Street Program in
the 1980s and reopened as Frank Slide Liquor. Its architecture is
typical of the small and medium-sized businesses that sprang up
throughout the Pass during the boom years.
3. Firehall (former site – present vacant lot)
After the original firehall in the old townsite was damaged in a
windstorm in 1917, a new firehall was built behind the Frank Hall
(site #1). Ironically, it was burned down in 1936 by an arsonist,
who had also set alight other buildings in Frank that year. Fire
equipment was then stored in the basement of the Methodist
Church building (site #4), until the purchase of a new fire truck
in the late 1940s required the construction of a garage on 21
Avenue. Frank ceased to have its own fire department after the
creation of the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass in 1979.
(Walk 100m up 148th Street to the corner with 21st Avenue.)
4. Methodist Church (present Masonic Hall)
Zinc smelter, 1912
Photo: James B Sutherland collection
Built in 1916 at a cost of $3000, the Methodist Church was also
the community hall for Frank's large Czech and Bohemian
population. Downstairs were classrooms and a gymnasium, and
it served as Frank's school from 1917 to 1921. Its basement was
used to store the town’s firefighting equipment from 1936 to
about 1948, after which the bell was removed and displayed
behind the Dunlop Guns (site #9) for several years. In 1970 the
Masonic Lodge, which had relocated away from the old Frank
townsite after the Slide, purchased the building and
reestablished its presence here, which continues today.
Dominion Avenue, ca. 1910
Photo: Glenbow Museum
(Walk 300m along 21st Avenue to the intersection with 150th Street)
Typical of Crowsnest Pass towns, this street displays a variety of
house styles built and renovated through the years.
5. Zinc Smelter residence (14874 - 21 Avenue)
The two-storey gambrel-roofed (barn-style) house on your right
was built in 1905 by the Canadian Metal Company, probably for
a senior manager of its Frank zinc smelter.
6. Hospital (former site – present 14913 - 21 Avenue)
Dr. George Malcolmson came to Frank in 1901, and in 1902 built
one of Alberta’s first rural hospitals behind his house. An x-ray
machine installed in 1906 or 1907 was possibly the first in
Alberta. The house was moved in 1917; the fate of the hospital is
unknown.
7. Frank Villa
(former site 14937-21 Avenue)
Samuel Gebo (1862–
1940) opened the
lucrative Frank Mine
in 1901 with his fellow
American partner
Henry Frank, and was
the mine company’s
vice president and
general manager as
Frank Villa, ca. 1902-1904
Photo: Karen Davidson Seward, Lake Placid, NY
The town of Frank survived the Slide of 1903, and expanded
north of the railway (the present community) in 1905. A census
the following year counted its population at almost 1200. But
fears of a second slide resulted in the houses and businesses in
the south part of Frank being moved further west to safety in
1912-1914, although the north part of town never moved. Frank’s
coal mines closed in 1917 and 1918 and their surface plants were
soon removed. The only significant buildings remaining in the
south townsite belonged to the CPR, but each succumbed to fire
- the roundhouse in 1934, and the station in 1954.
The present-day industrial park follows the original street grid.
152nd Street is the old Dominion Avenue, and is part of the
Crowsnest Pass Heritage Driving Route. A few basement
depressions and an old water standpipe remain.
(follow the Highway 3 sidewalk northwest for 200 metres to the
Pure Country Saloon).
Houses along the highway include some with hipped roofs (foursided pyramid shape), typical of miners’ cottages built
throughout the Crowsnest Pass prior to World War One; three
of these examples predate 1910.
8. Vysohlid residence (2001-150 Street).
The three houses on this corner were built in 1905-06 and are
amongst the oldest surviving houses in Frank. They were owned
by Henry Frank from 1906 until his death in 1908.
In June 1928, in the house closest to the playground, ten-monthold Walter Vysohlid drowned in an unattended wash tub in the
back porch. Despite being pronounced dead by the local doctor,
baby Walter was attended to by a passing ice cream vendor and
returned to consciousness seven hours later. Walter Vysohlid
went on to become a CPR train engineer and died in 1999 at the
age of 71.
(Walk 40 metres down 150th Street to the highway, turn right and
follow the sidewalk for 50 metres to the interpretive sign “Dunlop
Guns”.)
9. Dunlop Guns
Scottish immigrants Daniel and Annie Dunlop lost all three sons
overseas during World War One. This 1916 German field
howitzer and machine guns were erected in 1920 on the Dunlop
property in honor of their sons and other Frank veterans who
did not return. They were moved about 125 metres to their
present location after the sale of the Dunlop property.
9a. Old Frank Townsite (former site - present
industrial park).
The industrial park visible across the railway tracks is the site of
the original 1901 Frank townsite. In addition to the mine, the
Canadian American Coal and Coke Company built rows of
'miners cottages' and bunkhouses to accommodate its workers,
while private interests constructed businesses and hotels on the
main street, Dominion Avenue. The first church in the Pass,
Knox Presbyterian, was built in 1901, followed by a two story
school (sized for a town population of two thousand) in 1902.
Frank's first train station was a converted boxcar, which in 1905
was replaced by a two-story station in classic CPR architecture.
well as town overseer. Gebo lived in an impressive house built
on this site in 1901 for the princely sum of $15,000. After Gebo
moved to Montana in 1904, the house continued to be used as
the general manager's residence until the closure of the Frank
Mine in 1917. This fine house, locally known as the Frank Villa,
was then left vacant, and was torn down around 1930.
7a. Catholic Church (former site)
The forces of morality faced an uphill battle in boom-town
Frank, a rough-and-tumble place with more than its share of
murders and violence. On the hillside overlooking Frank, about
a hundred metres behind the Frank Villa (site #7), Father Felix
Lajat built the Sacred Heart /Corpus Christi Catholic Church in
1910. Furnished
Catholic church, ca. 1910.
Photo: Crowsnest Museum
with religious
items brought
from France, the
church had
unfortunately
been built
broadside to the
valley's prevailing
winds and blew
down during a
storm in 1918.
As the town of
Frank was in
decline the
church was not
rebuilt, but its lumber and ornate bell (cast in Belgium) were
incorporated into the new St. Anne's Catholic Church in
Blairmore. The bell is currently on display outside the Holy
Trinity Catholic Church in Blairmore.
(Walk 50 metres south on 150th Street, just past the playground
and the big interpretive sign “Leaders And Landmarks”.)
The Historical Walking Tour starts at the Allied Arts Gallery at the corner of Highway 3 (20th Avenue) and
148th street. Walk up 148th Street to 21st Avenue, turn right and follow 21st Avenue to its intersection with
150th Street. Turn right and follow 150th Street down to Highway 3 (20th Avenue), then turn right and follow
the sidewalk back to the Art Gallery. For the optional loop past sites 11 and 12, take the sidewalk from the
Art Gallery along Highway 3 across the river to a gravelled parking lot, then cross the parking lot to the
Sulphur Springs interpretive sign on the picnic shelter behind the trees. Return along the riverside path
back to the bridge and the art gallery.