Wikipedia says the 1916 Hotel Vancouver was built in an Italian Renaissance style. It was replaced in 1939 by an even grander chateau-style hotel. This contrasts with the Royal Alexandra, which was closed in 1967 and not replaced, leaving Canadian Pacific without a hotel in midwestern Canada’s largest metropolis.

Click image to view and download a 51.2-MB PDF of this 12-page booklet from the Chung collection.

Yet the 1939 replacement was partly a matter of politics. Canadian National wanted to build a newer hotel to compete with Canadian Pacific’s Hotel Vancouver, but couldn’t finance it because of the Depression. Canadian Pacific may have decided it was safer to join with Canadian National in financing half of the new Hotel Vancouver than risk that CN would get enough money to build its own hotel.

Although the 1939 building was two stories taller (17 vs. 15) than the 1916 one, it actually had fewer rooms: 507 vs. 521. Of course, that meant that the rooms in the older hotel were smaller, which would also make it less competitive. All of that would be nine or ten years in the future when this booklet, which claims that the 1916 hotel “stands unsurpassed among hotels on the Pacific Coast,” was issued in 1929 or 1930.