BELLEVUE RESTAURANT
Bellevue was a thriving mining town when Joe Mah, a Chinese immigrant, built the original Bellevue Cafe. Destroyed by a fire in 1917 that took with it most of Bellevue's downtown, the cafe was rebuilt by Mah at the same location. The building is the site of one of the most renowned - and tragic - events in the region's history.
The Sentinel train robbery (near the British Columbia and Alberta boundary) and subsequent shoot-out at the Bellevue Cafe occurred in 1920. On August 2 of that year, Canadian Pacific Railway No. 63 was held up by three men believing that Emilio "Emperor Pic" Picariello, the Pass's biggest bootlegger, was on board with a large amount of cash. The thieves, George Arkoff, Tom Bassoff and Alex Auloff (sometimes Arloff), were misinformed and netted only $300.00 in the robbery.
Five days later, police were tipped off that two "suspicious looking men" were eating lunch in the cafe. An R.C.M.P. officer and two members of the Alberta Provincial Police entered the cafe covering front and rear entrances.
Caught by surprise, the train robbers opened fire and in an explosive exchange, Arkoff, Corporal Usher of the R.C.M.P. and Constable Bailey of the A.P.P. were shot dead. The second robber was wounded and fled into the rocks of the Frank Slide to the west. He was captured several days later, and was eventually hanged. The final member of the gang was captured in 1924 in Butte, Montana reportedly betrayed by the conductor's stolen watch which was identified by an observant jeweler. In the meantime, the intended victim of the Sentinel train robbery, the bootlegger Picariello, was hanged (in 1923) for a sensational but unrelated murder.
Old-time residents claim that bullet holes from the shoot-out at the Bellevue Cafe still exist in the plaster beneath later renovations.
The Bellevue Cafe has been operated successfully by Chinese-Canadians for over seventy years. In 1990 the Alberta Main Street Programme discovered portions of the original façade beneath later additions. The historic material was beyond restoration and was left intact under the present façade which re-creates the character of the Bellevue Cafe as it appeared in the 1930's.
From the historical sign