Parts of the Glory Hotel date back to the rebuilding of the city soon after the 1886 fire. The site had a number of businesses by 1890 in a single storey structure owned by A G Ferguson who also owned the building at No. 2 Carrall Street and the site next door that he added to in 1889. Businesses included coal wholesalers and teamsters at no. 6 and the Royal Tea Co at no. 8.
In 1909 Frank Filion hired Parr and Fee to remodel and add a two storeys of hotel above the stores. They used their trademark white glazed bricks and centre-hung windows that are found in most of their hotel buildings along Granville Street. Filion and his wife Hanah were from near Montreal in Quebec, and had been in the city since 1891 (arriving from Port Arthur). Mr Filion’s first Directory entry was in 1892 when he was a grocer with Mr W L Davis at 109 Carrall Street. He appears to have replaced Mr Chilberg who was Mr Davis’s partner in the business as far back as 1888, although in 1890 Mr Davis was in business on his own with Mr Chilberg having set up his own grocery operation right across the street at 112 Carrall. Filion bought Davis’s interest in 1893 and in June 1895 moved to 204 Carrall Street, where he was described as “carrying a very desirable stock of goods”.
The upstairs premises weren’t always called the Glory Hotel. In 1910 they were called the Beaver Rooms, and there were two stores, Frank Filion and Max Freeman’s clothing store. (At this point the address had become 204 and 206 Carrall Street). The Beaver Rooms (not to be confused with the Beaver Rooming house on East Hastings) were run by W S Wainwright. In 1920 the Beaver Rooms were still over Filion’s grocery store, but next door was a barbers and a billiards room. In 1925 the barbers had become the Stockholm Cafe. In 1927 Miss Jinde was running a barber’s in 204, which she was still doing in 1940. By 1930 the Beaver Rooms had been joined by the Beaver Pool Hall and the cafe was now the World Cafe. When the name changed to the Glory Hotel isn’t clear – by 1947 they were known as the Carrall Rooms, but our 1978 photo shows them as the Glory Hotel, as they are today as a privately owned single room occupancy hotel.
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Changing Vancouver 