Indian Head Walking Tour Brochure & Map.pdf - Tourism ...

41. 500 Grand:
A Storied Landmark
Inside this dignified exterior is a hive of activity, as
the current owners maintain a film rescue business on
the main floor and live upstairs. The McIntosh Hotel
occupied this site from the 1880s until destroyed by fire in
the 1890s. The Union Bank of Canada bought the property
and built the current building in 1898, amalgamating with
the Royal Bank in 1925. In the 1960s, the branch relocated
across Grand Avenue, selling the original building to the
Rural Municipality #156 of Indian Head, who owned it
until the 1980s. It then became the head office for Pipestone
Home Care until Grenfell Hospital was closed and
renovated about 1994.
The next owners, Chieftain Construction, removed the
original wooden front doors and some oak fixtures, sealed
over first floor transom windows, installed a metal roof
over the original flat roof, replaced the boiler and put in
air conditioning. Two bank vaults remain, one on the main
floor and one in the basement.
The building has the stone foundation typical of the time,
while the Tyndall stone for the exterior was quarried in
Manitoba—note the fossils.
A former bank employee recalls an attempted robbery.
Apparently, the would-be thieves had a change of heart and
left empty-handed. They were apprehended by the R.C.M.P.
soon after.
Mavis Jealous was once employed as a teller and recalls
that she had to take a gun from the vault and put it inside
the drawer at the counter each day. There was a practice
shooting range in the basement; however, she was not
comfortable handling the gun and did not use the practice
range. Fortunately, the need to use the gun never arose. TG
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