This grand hotel-turned-hospital was closed in 1922 and torn down in 1928.

Rocky Mountain Sanatorium, 1912. Photo: James B Sutherland collection

Historical

It was replaced by the Turtle Mountain Playground in 1941, a motel, restaurant, dancehall and swimming pool that was Walking Tour 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) Of 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. 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 structure served as the roof over Frank's skating rink, before being demolished in 1923 for materials salvage. The original site of Frank, North West Territories (later ), was between Turtle Mountain and the railway From the sidewalk, look carefully in the trees and brush for tracks, next to the region's first coal mine. Town founder remains of the brick and stone foundation on either side of the gas pipeline right-of-way. A partially-unroofed brick flue (best Photo: James B Sutherland collection Henry Frank hosted its grand opening in 1901, a big splashy viewed from outside the Goat Mountain Get-a-way gate) runs up event attended by the Premier and his Public Works the hillside behind, which led to the base of its former 34m high minister, and included sports games, a banquet, and tours steel chimney. The smelter office building dates from April 1905 of the new mine. Frank quickly grew to be the principal and is the oldest surviving structure in Frank. It was extensively town within the Crowsnest Pass, symbolized by its renovated in 1993 and now serves as the office and residence for impressive mine works, tipple and powerhouse, as well as Goat Mountain Get-a-way. five hotels, a dozen businesses, a two-story school, the regional post office and a mansion for the mine general (Continue about 400 metres along the sidewalk across the highway bridge to the large graveled parking lot. Cross the manager. Even the great slide of 1903 could not slow things parking lot to the picnic shelter and the interpretive sign “Sulphur down; in 1905 construction began in the north subdivision Springs” behind the trees.) (the present town) and included a zinc smelter, a large resort hotel and dozens of new houses. What great promise 12. Rocky Mountain Sanatorium (former site - for the “Pittsburgh of Canada”... present parking lot)

Around 1880 Samuel Lee, a rancher from east of the Crowsnest It's all gone now. 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. The Historical Walking Tour of Frank starts at the Allied A two storey hotel at the springs was replaced in 1910 by a Arts Gallery, on Highway 3 at 148 Street. A tour map is in luxurious three storey hotel built here on the river, named the the centre of this booklet. Rocky Mountain Sanatorium. The springs water was piped to the hotel basement where it was heated in tubs for guests. In 1917 This interpretive walk is about 800 metres in length along the Canadian government purchased the hotel and used it as a concrete sidewalks, with a further one kilometre option convalescence hospital for soldiers returned from the battlefields along sidewalks and a flat trail. Both are suitable for persons of World War One. An unintended sideline for their recovery with mobility limitations. Please respect private property was the nearby ‘red-light’ district, across the river on a low hill to while on this walking tour. 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 The Union Hotel was built in 1902 on the main street of the old Mountain Supply Company, this brick building is one of the few Frank townsite, and was one of five hotels built in Frank before surviving old commercial structures in Frank. It served as the World War One. It was moved to this location in 1914, was Frank school between 1921 and 1957, then as the village office renamed the Frank hotel, and primarily housed CPR crews. With and hall for the shrinking community. Today the Crowsnest Pass the end of Prohibition (a provincial ban on alcohol) in 1924, a Allied Arts Association operates a year-round gallery. bar, restaurant and dancehall were added. The Frank Hotel operated until 1957 when it was gutted by fire and torn down. 2. Blais/Ruzicka Store (present Liquor) This building was constructed in 1914 as a replacement for the (continue on the sidewalk for 60 metres, back to the Art Gallery A.E.Blais general store in the old Frank townsite. Blais operated and the end of the Walking Tour. If you wish to continue on a it until 1929 when it was purchased by F.A.Ruzicka. The store further optional 1km loop, then follow the highway sidewalk past closed in 1955 and the building was used sporadically until the interpretive sign “Frank” for another 130m.) extensively restored under the Alberta Main Street Program in the 1980s and reopened as Frank Slide Liquor. Its architecture is 11. Zinc Smelter (foundation) and Smelter Office typical of the small and medium-sized businesses that sprang up (present Goat Mountain Get-a-way office) throughout the Pass during the boom years. Built in 1905, Canada’s first zinc smelter was planned to be North America’s largest. The Canadian Metal Company hoped 3. Firehall (former site – present vacant lot) to take advantage of local coal, and rail in concentrated zinc ore After the original firehall in the old townsite was damaged in a from southeast . But the company experienced windstorm in 1917, a new firehall was built behind the Frank Hall technical and financial difficulties, and the smelter never went (site #1). Ironically, it was burned down in 1936 by an arsonist, into commercial production. For many years the empty 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) Built in 1916 at a cost of $3000, the Methodist Church was also Zinc smelter, 1912 the community hall for Frank's large Czech and Bohemian Photo: James B Sutherland collection 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 Dominion Avenue, ca. 1910 about 1948, after which the bell was removed and displayed Photo: Glenbow Museum 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.

(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 The town of Frank survived the Slide of 1903, and expanded a senior manager of its Frank zinc smelter. north of the railway (the present community) in 1905. A census the following year counted its population at almost 1200. But 6. Hospital (former site – present 14913 - 21 Avenue) fears of a second slide resulted in the houses and businesses in Dr. George Malcolmson came to Frank in 1901, and in 1902 built the south part of Frank being moved further west to safety in one of Alberta’s first rural hospitals behind his house. An x-ray 1912-1914, although the north part of town never moved. Frank’s machine installed in 1906 or 1907 was possibly the first in coal mines closed in 1917 and 1918 and their surface plants were Alberta. The house was moved in 1917; the fate of the hospital is soon removed. The only significant buildings remaining in the unknown. south townsite belonged to the CPR, but each succumbed to fire Frank Villa, ca. 1902-1904 - the roundhouse in 1934, and the station in 1954. Photo: Karen Davidson Seward, Lake Placid, NY 7. Frank Villa The present-day industrial park follows the original street grid. (former site - 152nd Street is the old Dominion Avenue, and is part of the 14937-21 Avenue) Crowsnest Pass Heritage Driving Route. A few basement Samuel Gebo (1862– depressions and an old water standpipe remain. 1940) opened the lucrative Frank Mine (follow the Highway 3 sidewalk northwest for 200 metres to the in 1901 with his fellow Pure Country Saloon). American partner Henry Frank, and was Houses along the highway include some with hipped roofs (four- the mine company’s sided pyramid shape), typical of miners’ cottages built vice president and throughout the Crowsnest Pass prior to World War One; three general manager as of these examples predate 1910. 8. Vysohlid residence (2001-150 Street). well as town overseer. Gebo lived in an impressive house built The three houses on this corner were built in 1905-06 and are on this site in 1901 for the princely sum of $15,000. After Gebo amongst the oldest surviving houses in Frank. They were owned moved to Montana in 1904, the house continued to be used as by Henry Frank from 1906 until his death in 1908. the general manager's residence until the closure of the Frank Mine in 1917. This fine house, locally known as the Frank Villa, In June 1928, in the house closest to the playground, ten-month- was then left vacant, and was torn down around 1930. old Walter Vysohlid drowned in an unattended wash tub in the back porch. Despite being pronounced dead by the local doctor, 7a. Catholic Church (former site) baby Walter was attended to by a passing ice cream vendor and The forces of morality faced an uphill battle in boom-town returned to consciousness seven hours later. Walter Vysohlid Frank, a rough-and-tumble place with more than its share of went on to become a CPR train engineer and died in 1999 at the murders and violence. On the hillside overlooking Frank, about age of 71. a hundred metres behind the Frank Villa (site #7), Father Felix Lajat built the Sacred Heart /Corpus Christi Catholic Church in th (Walk 40 metres down 150 Street to the highway, turn right and Catholic church, ca. 1910. 1910. Furnished follow the sidewalk for 50 metres to the interpretive sign “Dunlop Photo: Crowsnest Museum with religious Guns”.) items brought from France, the 9. Dunlop Guns church had Scottish immigrants Daniel and Annie Dunlop lost all three sons unfortunately overseas during World War One. This 1916 German field been built howitzer and machine guns were erected in 1920 on the Dunlop broadside to the property in honor of their sons and other Frank veterans who valley's prevailing did not return. They were moved about 125 metres to their winds and blew present location after the sale of the Dunlop property. down during a storm in 1918.

9a. Old Frank Townsite (former site - present As the town of industrial park). Frank was in The industrial park visible across the railway tracks is the site of decline the the original 1901 Frank townsite. In addition to the mine, the church was not Canadian American Coal and Coke Company built rows of rebuilt, but its lumber and ornate bell (cast in Belgium) were 'miners cottages' and bunkhouses to accommodate its workers, incorporated into the new St. Anne's Catholic Church in while private interests constructed businesses and hotels on the Blairmore. The bell is currently on display outside the Holy main street, Dominion Avenue. The first church in the Pass, Trinity Catholic Church in Blairmore. Knox Presbyterian, was built in 1901, followed by a two story school (sized for a town population of two thousand) in 1902. (Walk 50 metres south on 150th Street, just past the playground Frank's first train station was a converted boxcar, which in 1905 and the big interpretive sign “Leaders And Landmarks”.) was replaced by a two-story station in classic CPR architecture.

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.