Regina's historic buildings and precincts

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Assiniboia Club, 1925 Victoria Avenue, 1911. Founded in 1882, all North-West Territories leaders while Regina was the capital, Saskatchewan premiers and lieutenant-governors and mayors of Regina were members from until the Club closed in 1994.

Many historically significant buildings in Regina, Saskatchewan were lost during the period 1945 through approximately 1970 when the urge to "modernize" overtook developers' and city planners' sense of history and heritage. The old warehouse district to the north of the old CPR tracks is being transformed into an interesting shopping precinct; the Assiniboia Club on Victoria Avenue has long since ceased to be an élite men's club and continues in use as a restaurant. Significant historic buildings and precincts include the following.

[edit] Government

Territorial Administration Building, Dewdney Avenue, circa 1915; legislative chamber in foreground

The Territorial Government buildings on Dewdney Avenue, dating from 1883, consisted of the Legislative Building, the Administration Building and the Indian Office and were designed by the Dominion architect, Thomas Fuller. The mansard roofed Administration Building, a Provincial Heritage Property, remains standing; it was restored in 1979 and currently houses an entertainment troupe ^[1] Government House of Saskatchewan on Dewdney Avenue was completed in 1891 as the vice-regal residence for the Lieutenant-Governor of the Northwest Territories and was the first electrified residence in the Territories.^[2]

Courthouse, 2002 Victoria Avenue, c.1919

The 1894 Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories and then of Saskatchewan (now the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench and Saskatchewan Court of Appeal) building on the northwest corner of Hamilton Street and Victoria Avenue ^[3] was replaced in 1965 by the current courthouse on Victoria Avenue between Lorne and Hamilton Streets. The keystone of the original Supreme Court building is on the front lawn as a decorative feature. ^[4]

The Beaux-Arts Saskatchewan Legislative Building on the south shore of Wascana Lake was constructed 1908-12.^[5]

The 1908 "Gingerbread" City Hall, circa 1915

The 1908 Romanesque Revival City Hall on 11th Avenue between Rose and Hamilton Streets provided facilities for civic government but also contained a large audience chanber, used for public lectures, balls, theatricals and even boxing matches. In an ill-conceived effort to revitalise the city centre it was demolished in 1965 and replaced by a now-failed shopping mall — it has now been taken over the federal government as office space. City Hall, temporarily relocated to the the Beaux-Arts old Post Office building on Scarth and 11th Avenue after the demolition of the 1908 building, was ultimately moved in 1976 to an undistinguished modern office block on the western periphery of the city centre; this saved the old Post Office from the wrecker’s ball.^[6]

The Old Post Office has now been converted to commercial use in connection with the ongoing revitalisation of downtown Scarth Street as a pedestrian mall. It was completed in 1907; its 1912 clock tower was for many years locally regarded as Regina’s Big Ben. The building was replaced as a post office in 1956 by the current post office on Saskatchewan Drive (formerly South Railway Street).^[7]

[edit] Education and culture

Regina College under construction, 1913. Note chickens in foreground

At one time Regina was replete with private as well as public school secondary and junior college education. Regina College, originally a private residential high school, and the Normal School (now the Canada-Saskatchewan Soundstage) were built by the Methodist Church of Canada in 1913. St Chad's Anglican Diocesan School was operated by the Anglican Sisters of St John the Divine on the then-Anglican diocesan property immediately to the east of Regina College on College Avenue. The Jesuit Order operated Campion College, originally a high school with junior college accreditation with the University of Saskatchewan like Regina College, on 23rd Avenue; the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions operated Sacred Heart College, later Marian High School, to the south of Campion College on Albert Street and Sacred Heart Academy in the West End immediately adjacent to Holy Rosary Cathedral. All are now closed.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Canada's Luther College, on the site of the original Government House next to the RCMP Academy, Depot Division, is the one remaining private school in Regina. The United Church's Regina College became the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus; Campion College no longer operates a high school but is now a federated college at the University of Regina, as is Luther College (which, however, continues also to operate as a high school on its original site at the old Government House on west Dewdney Avenue; the Anglican St Chad's Qu'Appelle Diocesan School has long since become defunct but maintains a notional historical existence in the College of Emmanuel and St Chad at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

Darke Hall interior

Darke Hall, adjacent to Regina College, was donated to the then-United Church college by Francis Nicholson Darke who had been instrumental in persuading the Saskatchewan Conference of the Methodist Church to establish Regina College in reaction to the failure to attract the University of Saskatchewan to Regina; he also provided a carillon of bells for Metropolitan Methodist Church; Darke Hall was for many years Regina’s principal concert hall and theatre, particularly after

(a) the destruction by fire in 1939 of the 800-seat Regina Theatre on the corner of 12th Avenue and Hamilton (now the site of the old Hudson's Bay department store building) — home from 1910 to the Regina Operatic Society, the Regina Orchestral Society and travelling vaudeville and stage plays^[8] — and

(b) the demolition of Old City Hall in 1965, which had provided a multi-purpose space used for concerts, theatre, balls and indeed boxing.

Darke Hall opened in 1929.^[9] It remains the recital and concert hall for the Regina Conservatory of Music and the University of Regina's Department of Music as well as the venue for amateur theatricals and public lectures.

Capitol Theatre, 12th Avenue and Scarth Street, 1929.

The 1500-seat Capitol Theatre, however, doubled as a movie house and live stage venue from 1921 and after the Regina Theatre burned to the ground the Capitol Theatre was Regina's principal downtown venue for "legitimate" theatre: the famous annual Canadian travelling revue "Spring Thaw" was staged here through the 1950s. By the 1980s Famous Players, which had acquired the Capital, was in financial trouble and desperately divided the Cap in half to make a poor-man's multiplex; ultimately the Cap was closed. By the time of its demolition in 1992 it was the last of many downtown movie theatres which had once thrived — the Regina Theatre, the Rex, the Grand, the Unique, the Roseland, the Elite, the Princess, the Lux, the Gaiety, the Broadway, the Roxy, the 1000-seat Metropolitan and the Cap itself.^[10] And office tower now occupies the site; the old Hudson's Bay Department store building, on the site of the Regina Theatre, is now also occupied by offices.

The Regina Theatre, 12th Avenue and Hamilton Street on the site of the old Hudson's Bay department store, opened in 1910. The 800-seat Regina Theatre doubled as a cinema and a legitimate theatre; famous travelling troupes which crossed Canada on the CPR before cinema and television performed here.

With the building of the Saskatchewan Centre of the Arts in Wascana Centre, well outside the Regiina Central Business District, both highbrow and mainstream entertainment were comprehensively removed from the city centre, completing the process begun with the destruction of the Regina Theatre and the demolition of Old City Hall. The Globe Theatre has moved downtown from the Centre of the Arts into the Old Post Office building, and nowadays is the only entertainment venue in the city centre apart from the casino in the CPR train station, and city planners seeking to revitalise the downtown business district must contend with the consequences of decisions by predecessors who directed the city's entertainment facilities away from the city centre.

The Carnegie Library, in similar style to the old Post Office, was replaced in 1962 by a large though undistinguished building which preserves remnants of its predecessor in its forecourt.^[11]

[edit] Germantown

Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church, Winnipeg Street in the heart of Germantown

The area known as Germantown (Broad Street east to Winnipeg Street and Victoria Ave. north to the CPR Yards) was settled by continental Europeans — Germans, Romanians, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Poles, essentially anyone neither British Isles, French or aboriginal in ancestry. In the early-predominant Anglo-Celtic mainstream non-francophone continental Europeans whatever their origin were generally referred to either as "Galicians" (Galicia actually being Austrian Poland) or as "German."

Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Descent of the Holy Ghost, Winnipeg Street

Europeans became established around the former Market Square by 1892. German, Ukrainian and Romanian religious, secular and educational institutions and services were early established in the neighbourhood — including St Nicholas's Romanian Orthodox Church (established in 1902), the oldest Romanian Orthodox parish in North America, St George's Cathedral, the seat of the Romanian Orthodox Bishop of Regina and the now long-demolished Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Descent of the Holy Ghost, both formerly on Winnipeg Street.

Regina's Anglo-Saxon élite grievously neglected Germantown in the early days and basic services of water and sewerage came scandalously late to the precinct. Many residents of the Germantown quarter of Regina lived in squalid shacks without basic services till well into the 20th century, when issues of loyalty to the British Crown during the First World War were comprehensively resolved in the favour of the residents' complete Canadian-ness.^[12]. By the 1960s invidious past ethnic prejudice had long since passed and Ukrainian food had become pan-Saskatchewan food. Apart from German Lutheran and Roman Catholic establishments throughout Regina, however, European churches and cultural clubs remain concentrated in Germantown.^[13]

[edit] The warehouse district

Warehouse district, Dewdney Avenue, circa 1915. Note horse-drawn drays

Immediately to the north of the downtown central business district, beyond the CPR rail line, is the warehouse district. Before the highways were upgraded to the extent that they permitted trans-Canada commercial shipping by road within Canada, and did not require trucking companies to dip below the 49th parallel to traverse the Great Lakes, the railways knit the country together. In particular the mail-order companies of Eaton's and Robert Simpson enabled inhabitants of now-defunct rural communities to shop by post (as well as providing outdoor farm biffies with toilet paper.)

Nowadays, as in other cities, the old warehouses are being turned into tony restaurants and shopping precincts. No doubt in due course there will also be loft apartments there also. However, at one time the warehouse district (together with the grain elevators adjacent to the CPR line) were Regina’s tenuous commercial raison d’être.

[edit] Downtown and West End churches

First Baptist Church on the corner of Victoria Avenue and Lorne Street, was opened in 1911 and its gold organ pipes first heard in 1912. The church was renowned for its large domed ceiling and chandelier. The 1912 Regina Cyclone severely damaged the church but it was soon restored.^[14]

Knox Presbyterian (later United) Church, cnr 12th Avenue and Lorne Street

Knox-Metropolitan United Church is the current manifestation of a Presbyterian congregation that dates back to 1885. Knox Presbyterian and Metropolitan Methodist churches were destroyed by the 1912 Regina Cyclone; both were soon rebuilt but in 1951 the two congregations of the now-United Church of Canada merged and occupied the Metropolitan building with Knox being demolished; Knox-Met is the major venue for downtown choral concerts, organ recitals and the annual Kiwanis Carol Festival. The Darke Memorial Chimes are heard every Sunday morning and on other special occasions.^[15]

St Paul's, Regina, circa 1895

St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, built in 1894 and the oldest church building in the city still in use, is a modest parish church on the periphery of the central business district whose parish dates from 1883.^[16]First Presbyterian Church on Albert Street was built in 1926 by non-concurring dissidents from the various Presbyterian congregations in the city of Regina — notably from Knox United, led by Judge W.M. Martin, and from Westminster United — which had universally opted to enter the United Church of Canada in 1925.^[17] They built a fine, determinedly traditional church structure — with chancel, transcepts and nave, as distinct from the Akron plan of Knox, Metropolitan, Westminster and First Baptist with pews fanning out from a central pulpit backed by choir benches^[18] — which is much prized by musical and cultural groups in the city as an auditorium.

Blessing of Holy Rosary Cathedral, 1913

Holy Rosary Roman Catholic Cathedral, a grand neo-romanesque structure on 13th Avenue in the West End, was completed in 1913; at the time, its 235-foot twin steeples were the tallest structures in Regina. Its Casavant Frères pipe organ, originally installed in 1930, remains the largest organ in Regina. ^[19] Westminster Presbyterian, now United Church, immediately to the east of Holy Rosary, was also completed in 1913. Wascana Methodist, later United Church, a fine, elegant wooden structure in plain vernacular style on 13th Avenue at Pasqua, was sold and demolished by its congregation when they built a new church in the West End; the congregation was subsequently dissolved and merged into Westminster. The West End of Regina, where the Cathedral is located and which has a somewhat bohemian air, has in recent years increasingly attracted the sobriquet "the Cathedral Area."

The oldest remaining building in Regina is the RCMP chapel at the RCMP Academy, Depot Division, dating from the earliest establishment of the RNWMP as a guardhouse in 1885. It subsequently served as a mess hall and canteen and became a chapel in 1895. At the time Lieutenant-GovernorEdgar Dewdney designated Regina as the Territorial Headquarters for the North-West Territories (sic) the CPR had not yet reached Pile of Bones: the now-RCMP chapel, constructed in Ontario, was accordingly moved by flat-car, steamer and ox team to Regina.^[20]

[edit] Notes