In 1915, Dennis Ryan and his wife Margaret began the 62-year-long run of Ryan family management of the Royal George Hotel in Luseland. That must be a record for hotel ownership, at least in Saskatchewan.
Born in Ontario, Dennis worked for a time in the hotel at Scott, where he met and married Kay in 1910. The couple homesteaded for a few years before they and their two little daughters moved to Luseland and bought the Royal George Hotel, built in 1912.
“The hotel was a haven for many bachelors,” Luseland’s local history book recounts. “Maggie tried to cater to them as much as possible whether it be a stack of pancakes, a crisp dandelion salad or fresh doughnuts for the priests that stayed there because there was no Roman Catholic church or rectory in town. The first masses were held in a room upstairs.”
Three Ryan children were born in the hotel – Laurence in 1917, Albert in 1918 and Leo in 1923.
Operating the hotel in those days was a 24-hour-a-day, 365-days-a-year job. “In the winter it was a full-time job to keep all the stoves going to keep all three floors even moderately warm,” Kay Ryan Heffner recalls in the Luseland history book. “When the coal stoker was installed and the boiler provided steam heat to all the floors, conditions were much more comfortable.”
Dennis Ryan passed away in 1936, and his widow Margaret continued to run the hotel. All the Ryan boys went off to war in the 1940s, leaving one of their sisters to help their mother look after the hotel operations. When Leo returned from his stint in the navy, he worked for his mother until 1950 when he and his wife Kay took over the Luseland hotel.
The 1950s brought new prosperity to the Ryans and the Royal George Hotel. In 1955, flush toilets, sinks, showers and bathrooms were installed in the hotel. In 1952, the Ryans purchased the first clothes dryer in Luseland, which made drying the hotel sheets a lot easier.
The average cost of a single room at the Royal George Hotel was $2. “This was not very profitable when, say on July 1 a ‘cowboy’ would rent a room for $2, invite two dozen more friends to join him and make a big mess,” Leo Ryan’s wife recalls. “Needless to say, the yearly stampede was not looked on with joy.” Hunting season was also a busy time for the hotel, every room would be full.
In 1960 the hotel industry in Saskatchewan underwent a big change. Women were allowed to enter hotel beverage rooms, “making the atmosphere much more pleasant for both guests and workers,” Kay writes. At this time women started working in the beverage room and Kay was able to help there, too.
Leo Ryan passed away in 1977, and the Luseland hotel was bought by Hopfner Holdings. The Ryan family’s 62-year reign at the Royal George Hotel had ended. Today, the hotel is still standing, with a bar and restaurant – the PT KAFE. Judging from its Facebook page, the food looks amazing!
