balmoral hotel

The Balmoral Hotel on Livingstone Street was a Yorkton landmark for almost 90 years. It was owned in the early 1900s by Harry Bronfman, whose family later owned the vast Seagram empire founded on the production and sale of liquor. Their booze business started primarily at the Balmoral during prohibition from 1915 to 1924, leading to stories about tunnels, Studebaker Whisky Six cars, a blending and bottling operation housed next to the Balmoral, and much more, as we talked about in the previous podcast. 

In 1950, the Balmoral was sold to Emanuel and Marj Balacko and friends from Winnipeg, with the Balackos taking sole ownership a few years later. They owned and operated the hotel until their retirement in 1980, and lived in a suite in the north wing. Their son Ron, a toddler when they took over, grew up in the hotel. We talked to him about his parents, the hotel, and, of course, those tunnels.

From 1928 to the early 2000s, the Seagram corporation was one of the giants in Canadian industry. Its primary business was making and selling alcoholic beverages – it owned such distinguished product lines as Crown Royal, Chivas Regal Scotch, Captain Morgan rum and many more, including the distribution rights to Absolut vodka.

But that wasn’t the whole story, or the full extent of Seagram’s business assets, which spanned the globe and included investments in oil, fruit juice, entertainment and more. 

Not bad for a company that had its roots in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, specifically in the Balmoral Hotel on Livingstone Street, where the Cornerstone Credit Union parking lot is now located. 

Not bad for a young man whose father bought the hotel in 1905 for Harry and his older brother Abe, who did not stay here.