Behind the plain exterior of Innisfail’s Ol’Moose Hall lies over 100 years of local history.
The building, which was once an opera house, an armory, a movie theatre, and a dance hall, has a rich past, much of which is unknown to the people of Innisfail.
However, one local group is working to preserve a little bit of the buildings history.
The Innisfail Town Theatre (ITT), the current owners of the Ol’Moose Hall, have recently received a grant from the Government of Alberta to partially restore the outside of the building.
After having done a number of renovations to the interior of the building when they purchased it in 2009, members of ITT will now be able to upgrade the outside of building to protect it from wear and tear due to traffic and weather.
ITT received $22,000 for the project through a Community Facility Enhancement Grant, an amount that they had to match through some of their own funds and through volunteer hours. As a provincial grant, ITT was encouraged to apply by Luke Ouellette, the MLA for Innisfail-Sylvan Lake, who said he believes ITT is a great addition to the community and wanted to help them make improvements on the hall.
The renovation project will be completed in two phases and some of the improvements will include replacing the siding with brick around the bottom of the building, adding windows to the top north side of the building, and making some improvements to the parking lot.
Approximately 200 volunteer hours by ITT members and several members of the community will be going into the project.
Ron Kooy, a member of ITT, said people of the town have already supported the project just by coming to the plays. ITT recently concluded their spring performances of The Foursome, a play that sold out for the last weekend of shows.
Ron and his wife Laurie both agreed that the building is worth preserving because of its historical significance to the town.
“The building was originally built for performing arts (as an opera house) and the acoustics in there are amazing. We want to keep it that way,” said Ron.
The hall was built in 1908, when two locals realized the original Opera House in Innisfail could no longer accommodate the growing crowds coming to events in town. The two men whose last names were Bodie and Johnston built the new Opera House at its current location.
The old Opera House was located on what is now Railway Avenue, but burnt down many years ago.
When it was built, the Opera House (now the Ol’Moose Hall) was outfitted with a balcony that ran around the entire interior of the building, as well as hidden orchestra pit in front of the stage, neither of which exist in the building anymore.
For years, the two owners Bowdie, who was a boxer and wrestler, and Johnston, who was a musician, ran events and activities out of the Opera House. At one point Innisfail became known for being a great boxing centre.
The hall was one of the largest in the area and therefore was a great place to hold political meetings and get-togethers.
In 1925 George Bryan took over the building and began showing silent movies. Then, in 1930, a man with the last name of Duffy took over the film operations and brought voice into film for the first time in Innisfail. However, after the Royal Theatre was built in 1929 audiences began to move to the new venue for movies. The theatre was then sold to the Reserve Army Unit in Innisfail at the time.
For the next few years it was used for military training, for cadet headquarters, and for social functions.
In 1939 with an upcoming war, the15th Canadian Light Horse unit, who were using the hall, were amalgamated with the Calgary Regiment and the Federal Government took over the hall. It was at this time the balconies were removed from the building and a gun range was constructed in the basement.
When the Innisfail Royal Canadian Legion built their auditorium around 1948, the hall was no longer used by the reserves and in 1965 the Loyal Order of Moose purchased the building from the Department of National Defense.
The order then used the hall until 2004 when they put it up for sale. With the help of a number of private investors, the Innisfail Town Theatre formed Ol’Moose Enterprises and purchased the building.
To this day, ITT, a non-profit volunteer based organization, runs the building and has worked to once again make it into a comfortable theatre.
Although many of the historic aspects of the building are gone there are still remnants of past owners in the building such as the old staircase going up to the viewing area, and the long concrete hallway in the basement once used as a gun range, said Ron. Above the ceiling at the hall is an old stamped roof, one piece of history that would be far too costly for ITT to restore.
But for now, the local theatre group will be concentrating on doing the restorations applied for in the grant and preparing for their fall performance.
Note* The historic facts for this article were taken from a article done by Stan Snideman in 1970. Snideman had done research and interviewed Clarence Carr and J. Handford for the article, which he presented at a Moose Lodge celebration when they had paid off the mortgage for the building. Information from his write up was used with his permission.
