Calgary Alberta - The Palliser Hotel opened its doors in Calgary 107 years ago this month and over the last century it has become one of the city's most storied buildings.
 
Author, photojournalist, and former Calgary Herald journalist David Bly wrote the following historical piece, looking back at the Palliser Hotel.
 
It was first published in the Herald on 31 Aug 2008.
 
The Palliser Hotel was born in boom times as Calgary's grand hotel.
 
While other hotels of its era have been demolished or ravaged by time, the Palliser maintains its status as the place in Calgary where rich and famous visitors lay their heads, and where Calgarians gather for events from the glittering to the mundane.
 
When ground was broken for the Palliser, Calgary was experiencing a real estate boom that had begun around 1903.
 
When the Canadian Pacific Railway broke ground for the Palliser on 12 May 1911 the boom was at its crest, and civic boosters predicted their city would be the star of the West, if not the whole nation.

Construction of the addition to the Palliser Hotel - 24 May 1929 Photographer? - Palliser Hotel.

Then the boom busted and cheers of boosterism became cries of despair.
 
By the summer of 1913, the outlook was gloomy, it brightened again when the Palliser officially opened on 1 Jun 1914 boasting 350 suites on eight floors and a staff of 300.
 
Calgary was in another frenzy of speculation.
 
Two weeks before, the Calgary Petroleum Company's Dingman No. 1 well had started producing "wet" gas in Turner Valley, and everyone was trying to get a piece of the action.
 
Much of that wheeling and dealing took place in the Palliser that summer.
 
That boom was short-lived, the cold winds of war in September put a damper on the economy.

The CP station with the Palliser Hotel to the right of the station - 1917 Photographer? - Calgary Public Library.

In 1919, the greyness of the war years was banished when Edward, Prince of Wales, came to visit.
 
From his suite in the Palliser, he described his parties and experiences in letters to his girlfriend, Freda Dudley Ward, wife of British politician William Dudley Ward, who himself would later come to Calgary and live in the Palliser in the 1930s and 1940s.
 
Visitors to the Palliser in the 1920s included Neville Chamberlain, who as prime minister of Britain, would later try to appease Hitler, and Winston Churchill, who replaced Chamberlain as prime minister and became Hitler's arch-enemy.
 
(In 2003, Lady Mary Soames, Churchill's daughter, sat in one of the Palliser's meeting rooms and reminisced about her famous father.)
 
In 1929, three floors and a penthouse were added to the hotel, making it the tallest building in Calgary at the time.
 
In more recent years, millions have been spent upgrading and restoring the grand old lady.

A group of excursionists at the Palliser Hotel pose on the hotel steps - Circa 1918-1919 W.J. Oliver - Glenbow Archives NA-1447-20.

Celebrities, royalty, national, and world leaders continued to make the Palliser their temporary home when they came to Calgary.
 
Queen Elizabeth has been a guest at the Palliser on several occasions.
 
A number of prominent Calgarians made the hotel their home, including R.B. Bennett, MP for Calgary West, and prime minister from 1930 to 1935, who lived in a suite at the Palliser.
 
People would sometimes sit in the foyer waiting for an opportunity to talk to him, and he would usually oblige.

A room in the Palliser that was part of the hotel's photo display on its 100th birthday in 2014 - Date? Photographer? - Palliser Hotel.

Not all famous guests were welcome.
 
When American concert singer Paul Robeson came to Calgary in 1946, he performed to an enthusiastic full house at the Grand Theatre, but his reception at the Palliser was less enthusiastic.
 
With great difficulty, he was able to book accommodations, and most reports indicate he was the first Black person to be allowed in the hotel as a guest.
 
If "this famous person slept here" plaques were installed at the hotel, the Palliser wouldn't need wallpaper.
 
Entertainers alone would number in the hundreds.
 
They include Roy Rogers, Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Jay Silverheels (who played Tonto), Superman (Christopher Reeve), and the Three Stooges.

A Palliser ballroom photo that was part of the hotel's photo display on its 100th birthday in 2014 - Date? Photographer? - Palliser Hotel.

With the 1999 merger of CP Hotels and a San Francisco-based company, this Calgary landmark was renamed the Fairmont Palliser, something at least one of its guests found offensive.
 
"It should be the Palliser, not the Fairmont Palliser, " said Pierre Berton, the writer who popularized Canadian history, during a 2001 visit a few years before his death.
 
"Railway hotels in the country are landmarks, the Chateau Frontenac, Lake Louise, Banff Springs. Names are important, they shouldn't be changed at a whim."
 
But Berton wasn't above giving the Palliser a nickname.
 
"We called it the Paralyzer, because we came here for parties and drank a little," Berton said, recalling his wartime years as an infantry instructor at Calgary's Currie Barracks.
 
The Palliser is far more than a posh hostel for visiting celebrities.
 
As soon as it opened, it began to serve as the premier place for business and social meetings, weddings, teas, receptions, and dances.
 
With the exception of its first few organizational meetings, the Calgary Rotary Club has met continually at the Palliser since its formation in 1914.
 
The hotel's Crystal Ballroom has been the setting for thousands of events for nearly a century.
 
The Fairmont Palliser is one of the three most significant historical buildings in Calgary, along with Lougheed House, and the downtown Lougheed Building.
 
The hotel's significance stems partly from its architecture, but more from the comings and goings that have taken place within its walls.
 
And the grand old lady shows every indication of continuing to play a significant role in the life of the city.
 
David Bly.