In the early 1900s, hotels were an essential feature in Saskatchewan鈥檚 commercial landscape. The settlers who homesteaded on the prairies had to travel to the nearest town to buy provisions such as flour, sugar, tea and cloth. Storekeepers relied on 鈥渃ommercial travellers鈥� or travelling salesmen to keep their shelves stocked with dry goods. The commercial travellers, in turn, relied on the hotels they stayed in to provide them with 鈥渟ample rooms鈥� 鈥� temporary showrooms where local merchants could view the salesmen鈥檚 wares and order goods.
In smaller hotels, sample rooms were often just a spare room furnished with a few tables and chairs. Some hotels had purpose-built sample rooms combining overnight accommodation and display space. Regardless, the commercial travellers came to see them as an indispensable service. Sample rooms remained a fixture in Saskatchewan鈥檚 small-town and city hotels well into the 20th century.
Commercial travellers went by train prior to the 1950s. When they arrived in a town or village, they hauled their trunks to the hotel where they rented both a room and the sample room 鈥� if it wasn鈥檛 already rented by another salesman. In the evenings, local shopkeepers came to the hotel to see the sample goods and place their orders. The next morning, the travellers boarded the train to the next town, or to return to the city from whence they came.
Hotels placed advertisements promising travelling men comfortable accommodations and 鈥済ood sample rooms.鈥� Sometimes, the accommodation was less than comfortable, with a bare floor and a jug of frozen water by the bed. 鈥淥ne of the mysteries of the commercial traveller,鈥� Frank Phillips wrote in the June 1, 1926 issue of MacLean鈥檚 magazine, 鈥渋s the way he manages to keep spruce and well groomed after a long course of small-town hotels, rising before daybreak to catch a mixed train, bolting a breakfast that will haunt him for the rest of the day, making his toilet minus hot water in a cold, bare room with a distorting mirror and yet emerging from the process neat, clean, smoothly shaven.鈥�
The Carnduff local history book recounts that commercial travellers often arrived at the Clarendon Hotel with 10 to 15 trunks full of merchandise. 鈥淭hey carried a sample of each item they sold; fifty different kinds of shirts available meant they carried fifty samples around with them.鈥�
In a story about the Pense hotel in the Regina Leader-Post on March 27, 1943, Arthur Tims recalled the days when he worked as a porter shortly after the hotel was built in 1904. One salesman would tip him a dollar for taking his 16 trunks from the train to the hotel鈥檚 large sample room. 鈥淭ravellers used to leave shirts in their rooms,鈥� Tims told the paper. 鈥淭hey never came back for them. We kept them for a while, then I鈥檇 get the ones that fitted.鈥澛�
The economic boom times of the 1920s gave way to the Great Depression, then the 1940s鈥� war-time economy gave way to more boom times in the 1950s. Travelling salesmen were vulnerable in terms of the market鈥檚 increasing scale, including the increased importance of advertising. Specialization was one strategy adopted by salesmen. Instead of carrying several products and product lines, they would carry one just one line which enabled them to make better time between sales calls.
In addition, improvements to Saskatchewan鈥檚 roads in the1950s meant that commercial travellers could switch from trains to cars to get from place to place. Unfortunately for hoteliers, automobiles enabled salesmen to move more easily between towns and get home more quickly, cutting into the hotel business. Then, in 1960 when mixed drinking was allowed in Saskatchewan, many hotels turned their sample rooms into beverage rooms. Commercial travellers were not longer hotel-dependent.
