The Queen's Hotel – A Hearst Institution

February 8, 2025

The story of the Queen's Hotel started with Hubert Knipprath, who was born in 1877 in Drove, Germany and died in 1960, in Hearst. At sixteen, he apprent­iced in a bakery, delivering bread and pastries to homes. He married Frieda Larson in 1903 and they moved to London England in 1905 where they owned a small bakery. Hubert then moved to Montreal in 1912, leaving Frieda and their new baby Mary with relatives back in Germany. In 1914 he relocated to Chapleau, Ontario and worked for a time as a brakeman for the CPR. Bill Allen hired him to work in his bakeshop but anti-German animosities surfaced during WW1 and he was physically assaulted by some locals. In 1918, when he was offered an opportunity by Edgar Pellow, he moved to Hearst and opened his own bakery in a building on the corner of George and 9^th Streets. He added a small confectionary store and living quarters upstairs and was finally able to bring his wife and daughter Mary to Hearst in 1922.

To supplement his income, he rented the downstairs corner of his building to the Banque Canadienne Nationale, (formerly Bank of Hochelaga.) Newaygo Timber rented the upstairs. Frieda Knipprath then bought the property next door and turned it into a rooming house. Frieda and Mary visited Germany in 1931 where Mary obtained her Licentiate in Music from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Koblenz.

On February 14, 1932, Mary was awakened by her dog, Bobbie, who was scratching at her face and running to the window. Seeing flames shooting beneath the window, she awakened her father, who dashed down the stairs to safety. Frieda was away at the hospital. Mary returned to her room where she was trapped. Grabbing a blanket, she jumped through the window, landing in a pile of wood. She was found unconscious in the snow, in forty-below temperatures. Mary had cut her hand on the glass and had to have the tendon in her finger repaired, ending her piano career as her finger remained permanently damaged. She was transferred to Toronto General Hospital where she remained in a coma for three weeks. She also suffered a back injury during the escape. It was established that the fire was deliberately set. Out of all their papers and heirlooms, only one thing survived the fire and that was their Canadian naturalization papers, which had arrived in 1929.

The family had no insurance and the building was totally destroyed. The building was rebuilt with the familiar flat corner and Banque Canadienne Nationale (formerly Bank of Hochelaga) signed a ten-year lease. Eventually, when the Bank closed, Hubert received a liquor permit and began remodelling. It was opened to the public as the Queen's Hotel, complete with beer parlour, dining room and a Chinese cook named "Charlie."

Hubert also owned the Hearst Bottling Works with an Orange Crush franchise which he sold to his son in law, A.C. Smith. Along with Todor Chalykoff and Fred Lecours, he brought electricity to Hearst in 1942 with the Hearst Power System. The Knippraths operated the hotel until they retired and sold it in 1948.

The new owner, Henry Selin, had arrived in Canada from Sweden in 1911. At this time his father, John Selin, set up several sawmills in the Sault Ste Marie area. Henry followed his father in the pulpwood trade and came to Hearst in 1942. He partnered with Montreal businessman, Saul Freidman in 1947 to create Henry Selin Forest Products Ltd. (HSFP). He established a sawmill and sourced timber in three townships southwest of Hearst which were owned privately by Transcontinental Timber Corp of France. By the late 1950s, Henry Selin Forest Products had become the largest lumber producer east of the Rocky Mountains.

Selin and his wife Monica made their home at Nassau Lake, which was one of his pulp camps west of Hearst, near Calstock. He built an apartment in the hotel for them to use when they were in town.

The next year ano­ther fire threat­ened the Queen's Hotel. As re­port­ed in The Toronto Star on April 5, 1949 under the head­line HEARST FIRE­MEN SAVE EIGHT FROM SMOKY HOTEL ROOMS.

"Eight persons were trapped by smoke last night when fire gutted beverage rooms of the Queen's Hotel here. The eight guests were in their rooms on the second floor of the hotel. Their cries for help were not heard by firemen for 15 minutes.

"The blaze swept through the two empty beverage rooms and melted metal chairs and table legs. The fact the fire did not spread to the rest of the all-wooden hotel is credited by the hotel staff to the prompt action of the local fire department.

"The heavy smoke swirled through the lobby and filled the second floor of the hotel. Guests there were convinced the fire had spread to the second floor and several became panicky.

"Bert Buck and Lad Medve, two volunteer firemen, were the first to sight the guests through the blinding smoke and made repeated climbs up and down the ladders carrying them to safety.

"The eight persons trapped in the smoke were: Mr. and Mrs. Henry Selin, Mr. and Mrs. W. Atkinson, Gerrard Aube, Cyril Fulton, Jack McKenzie and Jack Robineau. Mrs. Atkinson escaped to the roof until the smoke cleared, when she made her way to the lobby of the Hotel.

"Early estimates placed damage at $5,000 but it is believed water damage might increase the loss. Firemen said the fire burst from the furnace room in the basement. They are checking a report of defective wiring.

"The hotel alarm came as the firemen were returning from a fire that destroyed the contents of a railway bunkhouse. Many of them still had soot staining their faces from the first blaze, when they were called to the hotel.

"The railway bunkhouse was completely destroyed. At first it was feared a train fireman had perished inside, the engineer who escaped the fire, fainted when he saw his mate safe outside".

For a short while, Bob and Arthur Selin, two of Henry's sons, lived in the hotel while attending Hearst Public School and spent weekends at Nassau Lake. As Arthur wrote in the Selin story in Clayton's Kids: "Adrien Gagnon, the hotel manager, was charged with supervising them – at best a loose parental structure. At night, Bob would often leave the room by the fire escape, which was a rope by the window. His best friend was Gary (Fatty) Sharp, making for a mischievous twosome."

Maybe they were the culprits who hit pedestrians with snowballs from the roof of the Queen's.

Adrien Gagnon's sister, Marguerite Comeau, had a small restaurant on George Street which she sold to Lad Medve. Mrs. Comeau then worked at the desk at the Queen's and began to think about buying the hotel.

In her life story, she writes that Henry Selin did sell the Queen's Hotel to her in 1955. She moved her family into the hotel until she built a new home next door in 1958. The hotel prospered and Mrs. Comeau was able to treat herself to new Cadillacs when she wanted to change colour. She sold the hotel to her son Claude in 1966. There have been other owners over the years, including Barney Larose, whose generosity and long list of friends ate into his profits because he insisted on letting them drink for free.

Many boys, including King Begin and Ray Alary, did well shining shoes outside the Queen's.

The hotel ceased to operate in 2008, became derelict and was demolished by the town in 2014. They had declared it a danger to pedestrians. Another fixture on 9^th Street, The Palace Hotel, met the same fate earlier that same year.

Radio-Canada posted the following on their web-site on Nov. 4, 2014, complete with a short video.

The former site of the Queen's Hotel is now oc­cu­pied by the Nations Park. The in­stal­lation of a tree sitting on a turtle's back was designed by local artist Laurent Vaillancourt in con­sul­ta­tion with the First Nations of Con­stance Lake. The turtle re­pre­sents Mother Earth and the branches of the tree are inscribed with the names of all the countries represented by the people from around the world who chose Hearst as their home.

Claude Cantin suggests, "I know a lot of us have some fond (and maybe no so fond?) memories of that place. You can now go and think of those times, peacefully, at that same location."

In their own words some of these memories, first beer, first date, live bands or seeing the exhausted (exotic) dancers are repeated below.

Judy Halme Tanguay remembers being fitted for glasses in 1960, by Dr. Newell, a visiting optometrist from Kapuskasing. He hung an eye chart on the wall and prescribed glasses from a room at the Queen's Hotel.

When Dr. Killingbeck relocated his family to Hearst in 1957, their first residence was the Queen's Hotel. His daughter, Marnie, recalls the movie theatres down the street from the Queen's – two showings nightly, plus Saturday matinee and Sunday midnight – and waking up to the closing of the beer parlour and patrons banging into the windows on their way home.

Rose Spillenaar, whose father, Rev. John, was the Pentecostal minister in Hearst, recalled that he would enlist his family and other church members to sing hymns on the sidewalk outside the beer parlour doors in an attempt to save the souls of the inebriated patrons. Picture on right shows Rose Spillenaar and Miriam Hendrickson.

The following is a selection of memories taken from comments on a recent post about the Queen's Hotel on the Hearstory Facebook site.

L.J. Lafleur recalls: "The Queens was the very first bar I went to. I was 17 (the legal drinking age in Ontario had been lowered to 18 in 1971 and then raised to 19 in 1979). They had bands at the time & I remember the band heavy on AC/DC songs & playing ‘Hells Bells' & ‘Shook Me All Night Long'. This started a brief run of getting kicked out of bars for being underaged. A couple of years later the bar was turned into a discotheque which was also quite fun. Then other bars turned to discos also so the Queens became a "ballet studio" (exotic dancers). We'd sometimes drop by for a beer before heading to the Wave, El Dorado, Companion or a dance at the College or KC. Along with the Legion, Windsor or Palace/Bistro this was all part of our bar-hopping routine on weekends in Hearst. Great times!"

James Turuba remembers: "I drank there when I turned 19 and would go there a couple times until it closed. It was smoked-filled like every other bar when I turned 19 but at least it was busy and the smoking ban killed many of the bars in Hearst. I notice everywhere I go the bar scene isn't a big thing anymore."

Nicole Lacroix-Morin: "Morin Construction had pain and sorrow when they were tearing down the legendary building. Bons souvenirs!"

Max Morneau: "It was my second home, I used to have my place to go to sleep when I was too drunk to ride my bike to the club house in Jogues, my room was just on the corner in front of the bar, I was always sitting at the table beside the yellow posts, drank a lot of Jack Daniels there, lol . . ."

Max was a member of The Northern Riders Motorcycle Club, whose clubhouse was in Jogues. They were regulars at the Queen's.

Kevin Vallieres: "I used to shine shoes out in front of the Queen's just about every Saturday during the summer months. It was a busy place!"

Gerry Richer: "1975, working for MNR, Hearst, met my wife-to-be Ginette Couture (now Richer) in the Queens . . . offered to drive her home, she turned me down, a year later we were married. Got drunk/danced at the Queen's more times than I remember."

Wally Bidwell: "both Gerry Daigle and I got engaged at the Queens on the same evening!!"

Peggy Wade Dodds: "Back in the day women were not allowed in the beer parlours. Men only! Those of us who walked by on the south side of George Street had to pass under the big fan that was blowing out the stinky, smoke-filled air from the beer parlor. We were on our way to Fred Smiths Store next door to buy the latest records, Elvis, Bill Haley, Pat Boone etc. from my friend, Mai Rasinpera, who later went to Sick Kids in Toronto to become a nurse. So many memories."

Ernie Bies: In my time in the early 1960s, the legal drinking age in Ontario was 21 but many bars did not check birth certificates. One day I was enjoying a beer at the Queen's and my sister Anne decided to play a trick on me by telling the waiter that I was underage. The waiter was my classmate at High School, Roger Comeau, who simply told her, "That's OK, so am I."

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References used were from Clayton's Kids, The Knipprath Story by Patsy Smith and the Selin story by Art Selin as well as Marguerite Comeau's unpublished autobiography.