Watch our North-West Travellers Building video.

The North-West Travellers Building was built in 1914 by the Northwest Commercial Travellers Association of Canada. The building’s design beautifully complimented the Calgary Firehall No. 1 next door, both in the colour and in the texture of its exterior cladding. Its solid mass also nicely complemented the diagonally placed firehall and soaring lookout tower, and both would stand together as familiar historic landmarks in the city core for the rest of the century. In 1945 the building was sold and converted into a residential hotel but in 1948 it was purchased by the Salvation Army, renovated and opened as a men’s hostel and treatment facility. In the fall of 2001 Heritage Property Corporation purchased the building from the Salvation Army and began breathing life back into the city landmark. The rehabilitation and restoration of the North-West Travellers Building consisted of repairing the base building structure, replacing the elevator, installing new mechanical and electrical systems, and completely restoring the building’s exterior facades. Heritage Property Corporation completed the restoration and renovation in 2002 and the building officially re-opened in January 2003. Heritage Property Corporation received both a City of Calgary Heritage Award and a Downtown Vitality Award for their restoration and rehabilitation of the North West Travellers Building. The building was designated a Provincial Historic Resource on January 30, 2003.