Bellevue Hotel - Rossland, BC
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T0SHEA
N 49° 04.761 W 117° 47.981
11U E 441602 N 5436584
The Bellevue Hotel, now known as The Flying Steam Shovel, is possibly the site of the first powered flight by man - accomplished in February of 1902, a full year before the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.
Waymark Code: WMG4M7
Location: British Columbia, Canada
Date Posted: 01/12/2013
Views: 1
The Flying Steam Shovel sits on the south east corner of Washington Street and Second Avenue in Rossland, now restored and still in use as a hotel and pub.
This hotel is the only one of Rossland’s many hotels built prior to 1900 that is still serving as a hotel today. Constructed in 1897 as the Bellevue Hotel, it was built across the road from where the new C.P.R. railway station would soon be. It had a total of 27 well furnished bedrooms, a large dining room and an office with sitting room. It was a popular drinking establishment for men returning from work at the mines and from Trail on the afternoon train. Many “regulars” were said to have had their own personal beer steins.
Changes in ownership have given the hotel different names - from 1903 to the early 1990s it was known as the Orwell Hotel. The current name is the Flying Steam Shovel to recognize the endeavours of an early Rossland inventor, Lou Gagnon, who experimented with helicopter-type flight from the hotel’s rooftop.
Their website: (
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The story of the Flying Steamshovel: (
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The history of the Flying Steamshovel: (
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A small excerpt from the above web page:
"...Gagnon’s moment was drawing near. With his eye on the steam gauge, Gagnon reached up and slowly valved the steam into the turbines, causing the main rotor to turn. He then cracked the throttle of the horizontal engine to make the push propeller tick over. Soon both were a blur and an invigorating downdraft blasted everything loose from the scene, including the crowd. The rickety framework began to shudder and finally the front end of the thing lurched free of the ground. At the same time the back end began to revolve from the torque.
Through a series of frantic adjustments, Gagnon did manage to get the Flying Steamshovel in the air above the height of the Hotel. But in a final effort to control the spinning machine he turned off the upper valve of the turbine’s casing which disastrously caused the main rotors to come to a groaning and sudden halt. The tail dropped first and the Flying Steamshovel corkscrewed down, barely missing the hotel, and crashed upside down in an explosion of steam, smoke and cinders..."
OFFICIAL ROSSLAND HERITAGE REGISTRY: (
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