$150.00 CAD
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Well known turn-of-the-last-century photographer.
Gelatin silver print.
Ink stamped on back:
Nice early photo of the first generation structure of what is now the Banff Springs Hotel with mountains in background.
11.5 X 9 cm.
John Henry Clarke
Born in England on 6 August 1860, Clarke was married with a son in 1891, when he emigrated to Canada. Arriving in Winnipeg by 1894, Clarke became employed as a photographer with Duffin & Company. He accompanied a group of Manitobans going to find their fortunes in the Klondike Gold Rush as far as Victoria, BC, returning to Winnipeg afterwards.
In 1903, Clarke moved to Selkirk where he appears to have remained for the rest of his photography career. He returned to Winnipeg after retirement, where he died of pneumonia at the Winnipeg General Hospital on 14 February 1923 and was buried in Elmwood Cemetery. He was survived by a son.
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/
The Banff Springs Hotel is a luxury hotel that was built during the 19th century as one of Canada's grand railway hotels, being constructed in Scottish Baronial style and located in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. The hotel was opened to the public on June 1, 1888.
The original building was designed by American architect Bruce Price. It was built between spring 1887 and spring 1888 by the Canadian Pacific Railway at the instigation of its president, William Cornelius Van Horne.
The hotel is located within a spectacular setting in the Rocky Mountains, just above the Bow Falls, close to thermal springs.
Starting in 1911, a wholly new structure was built in stages to replace the 1888 hotel. Price's Shingle style-influenced wooden structure was replaced with a new building of concrete and faced with stone. The new building was designed by another American architect, Walter S. Painter.
The original building was quite different from the present Banff Springs structure. Variously termed a "Tudor hall" or a "Swiss chalet", the Price building was clad in shingles with stone accents, and featured a profusion of dormers, turrets, and roof lines. The 1888 structure cost $250,000 and a mistake made by the builder changed the intended orientation of the building, turning its back on the mountain vista. This building included more than 100 bedrooms, centered on a five-story, octagonal rotunda. An addition in 1902 expanded and renovated the building, adding more than 200 rooms. Further additions followed.
By 1906, plans were advanced for a complete overhaul of the Banff Springs Hotel building, proposing a replacement of much of the original structure. Walter Painter, chief architect for Canadian Pacific Railway, designed an eleven-storey central tower in concrete and stone, flanked by two wings. This time correctly oriented to the dramatic view, the so-called "Painter Tower" was completed in 1914 at a cost of $2 million with 300 guest rooms and, for some time, became the tallest building in Canada. Construction of new wings was delayed by World War I and the surviving Price wings continued in service.
WIKIPEDIA
