I spent the entire month of July touring Saskatchewan and Alberta visiting family and recharging. One of the last days of our holidays were spent noodling around Coleman, Alberta, a resilient little mining town that was formed at the beginning of the 20th century. Although we somehow managed to miss the Biggest Piggy Bank in the World, we did find a great wool shop, vintage and antique shop, and take a few photos of The Roxy:

I’m still not sure why “Roxy” became a ubiquitous name for theatres and nightclubs (and more), but the original Roxy must have had far reaching influence to a town that currently has one-fifth of the amount of people needed to fill the original Roxy.

While the NY Roxy was alive and well in the 1920s, Coleman was a tiny town in Canadian frontier populated by coal miners who worked in absolutely miserable conditions. It’s not clear when Coleman built its own Roxy, but it has had time to be worn out:

Judging from the Pepsi logo, the ad on the side of the building was painted in the 1960s, so we know The Roxy is at least that old if not older.

Although this example is not as palimpsestic as the buildings in Moose Jaw I posted about in summer 2009, it has that same irrepressible frontier attitude that tells us it is not going disappear anytime soon.