The Scona Garage/Keg Building has survived almost a 110 years. But old Otto Edinger built it well back then. And now with Beljan re-developing the building, it should be good for another long period of time.
Otto Edinger and son Albert built the Scona Garage in 1912. Housing was in short supply as thousands flooded into the city during those boom years.
22 apartments were built upstairs. Woodwork and skylights and other attractive elements made them into classy rental units. Great family names of Strathcona's history pop up in the list of residents through the years - Gainers, Lendrum and Ball are just three. At times more than two with the same name live in adjoining apartments so it seems to have a been a whole little society in those rooms.
This was back when Strathcona was a separate city from Edmonton. The address of the building was the intersection of First Avenue South and First Street West.
There were only 100 automobile owners in Edmonton in 1911, but that number was expected to double in the next year.
But soon pretty much everything else would change as well.
Cars were becoming easier to operate. self-starting for example
early models in those days were the Maxwell, ad the Everitt 30 and McLaughlins both made in Ontario
Early "motorists" included W. McKernan, soon to open the Princess Theatre, Robert Tegler, of the landmark Tegler Building downtown.
Soon the Edingers decided to start a construction company.
They sold the garage to Cadillac salesman Tom Evans who had moved in from Seattle. It was renamed the Cadillac Garage.
=======================================
announcement of his imminent arrival
"Farthest North" Evans makes his headquarters in Seattle. western sales manager of the Cadillac auto,
Set to move to Edmonton. said to be a live number and a jolly one and wherever he is the atmosphere is permeated with kerosene perfume." (EB, Feb. 24, 1911)
ad for business
Tom L. Evans Cadillac Garage. Fully Equipped Machine Shop for Auto Repairs and Machine Work.
Phone 3111. ( (EB, Feb. 24, 1911) [Note the four-digit phone number !]
=============================================
And Strathcona merged with Edmonton. Street addresses were soon changed, when the city adopted the system we have now.
Also this was about the time the economy crashed. Evans did not own the garage long. J.B. Little who also owned a brickyard in Riverdale, bought the business after a few years.
Soon a world war broke out, followed by the Spanish flu epidemic.
A fellow named Cantello Bagnall was drafted into the army.
He lived through the war.
Ironically, when he was in Halifax returning from France at war's end, his younger brother, aged 16, died of the flu in Edmonton. He was one of the 600 that died in Edmonton in the epidemic.
Shortly after his return from the war, Cantello became proprietor of the Scona Garage.
Another brother, name of Millar, worked with him.
They both lived upstairs in the same building in the Scona Apartments.
They moved to Westlock later.
The building was re-purposed
Ferguson Bros. Drilling was there in the 1950s.
Some of the people living in the apartments upstairs in the 1960s had lived there for decades.
Then the building was sold to the Keg and Cleaver chain that had started in North Vancouver in 1971.
1974 the Keg opened there.
for last 50 years it provided food and drink for people from across the city - and jobs to local residents.
I worked there myself for a couple years in high school.
============================================
Comments