Hotel Alexandra and bakery, Huntington, British Columbia - 1915.

Photograph credited to the Reach Gallery Museum, Abbotsford Museum

http://www.thereach.ca/photo/p433

The description of this photograph according to the Reach Gallery Museum is as follows;

"Hotel Alexandra, C Street (now Sumas Way). Left to right: the dentist, Ruth Murphy, Mrs. Little, Michael Murphy, Hormidas Munroe. Hormidas was French and the "H" in his name was silent so he was often referred to and his name spelled as 'Armidas'. Ruth Murphy was a nurse. She died during the 1918 influenza epidemic while nursing relatives sick with the flu."

      

Continuing on from the last post, this is the second photograph featuring the Hotel Alexandra.  We are looking west. The buildings are fresh and clean with a fine wooden boardwalk.

According to "One Foot On the Border" published by the Sumas Prairie and Area Historical Society (page 144) :

"Mike Murphy was born near Cork,Ireland in 1870 and immigrated to America, arriving in Seattle in 1886.  After continuing on to British Columbia he took up a pre-emption on the Fraser River and settled where the old Whatcom Trail emerged.  He married Mary Cleary of Mission, British Columbia in 1893.  The couple relocated to Huntington, British Columbia where they started a livery stable and a rooming house. Around 1910, Mike built the Hotel Alexandra which he named after his daughter.  His wife Mary died in 1909 and his daughter Ruth died during the WW1 influenza epidemic while nursing ill relatives.  His daughter Alexandra survived the epidemic, passing away in 1997.  The Hotel Alexandra burned down in 1926. Mike Murphy died during an operation in 1935, two weeks after the death of his second wife. 

Please check in tomorrow for the third in the Hotel Alexandra series showing early life, just north of the border.