The barracks in Coleman went up in 1904, a year before Alberta became a province. The building was there before the police were. From 1918 it housed the Alberta Provincial Police, and it kept them for fourteen years.
On Sept. 21, 1922, Constable Stephen O. Lawson was shot in front of it. His wife and one of his daughters saw it happen from the doorway, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. The Coleman APP barracks has carried that moment ever since, and the Crowsnest Historical Society now tells the story inside the building where it ended.
Key facts
- The Alberta Provincial Police Barracks in Coleman was built in 1904 and designated a Provincial Historic Resource on Feb. 15, 2002 (Alberta Register of Historic Places).
- The Alberta Provincial Police used the Coleman barracks from 1918 to 1932 (Alberta Register of Historic Places).
- Constable Stephen O. Lawson of the Alberta Provincial Police was shot and killed outside the Coleman barracks on Sept. 21, 1922 (Dictionary of Canadian Biography).
- Emilio Picariello and Florence Lassandro were hanged at Fort Saskatchewan on May 2, 1923, for the killing of Constable Lawson (Dictionary of Canadian Biography).
Why Emperor Pic ran the Crowsnest Pass
Alberta went dry on July 1, 1916. In the Pass, that turned a hotel man into something bigger. Emilio Picariello managed the Alberta Hotel in Blairmore, and people called him the Emperor, or Emperor Pic. His liquor business ran from Nelson, B.C., east to Regina, and the road through the mountains made Blairmore and Coleman the natural hinge of it.
The APP was created to enforce a law a good share of the Pass did not want. Two years before Lawson died, the same valley had already seen the Bellevue cafe gunfight of 1920, and nobody in Coleman needed reminding what a police posting there could cost.
What the Lawson trial left unsettled
Picariello and Florence Lassandro were tried in Calgary from Nov. 27 to Dec. 3, 1922, before Justice W.L. Walsh. Both were convicted and both were hanged at Fort Saskatchewan on May 2, 1923. Lassandro remains the only woman ever hanged in Alberta.
The record never settled which of the two fired the shot. That question has kept the case alive for a century, on stage and in the arguments people still have about it in the Pass.
Prohibition did not outlast them by much. Albertans voted in a plebiscite on Nov. 5, 1923, and legal sales resumed on May 13, 1924, the start of the liquor control board era.
How the graves finally got headstones
For decades the two lay in unmarked graves at St. Joachim Cemetery in Edmonton. In 2011, headstones went in, paid for by a $2,500 bequest from William James Connelly. Gerry Connelly found the plots with a hand-drawn map the family had kept. That is the kind of small, stubborn act of remembering that Alberta history depends on.
What visitors see at the barracks today
The province designated the barracks a Provincial Historic Resource on Feb. 15, 2002. The Crowsnest Historical Society opened its exhibit there in 2017, and adult admission is $10. Visitors get a rare thing there, the chance to stand where a story happened and read it in the same room.
The doorway is still there, looking out on the same stretch of Coleman it framed on Sept. 21, 1922.
Frequently asked questions
What happened to Constable Stephen Lawson?
Constable Stephen O. Lawson of the Alberta Provincial Police was shot and killed outside the Coleman barracks on September 21, 1922. His wife and one of his daughters saw it happen from the doorway, according to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Who was convicted of killing Constable Lawson?
Emilio Picariello and Florence Lassandro were tried in Calgary from November 27 to December 3, 1922, before Justice W.L. Walsh. Both were convicted and both were hanged at Fort Saskatchewan on May 2, 1923. The record never settled which of the two fired the shot.
Why is Florence Lassandro notable in Alberta history?
She remains the only woman ever hanged in Alberta. That unsettled question of who fired the shot has kept the case alive for a century, on stage and in the arguments people still have about it in the Pass.
Can you visit the Coleman police barracks today?
Yes. The barracks went up in 1904, a year before Alberta became a province, and was designated a Provincial Historic Resource on February 15, 2002. The Crowsnest Historical Society now tells the Lawson story inside the building where it ended.
What was the Alberta Provincial Police doing in Coleman?
The Alberta Provincial Police used the Coleman barracks from 1918 to 1932, in the years when it enforced prohibition. Alberta went dry on July 1, 1916, and in the Pass that turned hotel man Emilio Picariello, “the Emperor” or “Emperor Pic,” into something bigger: his liquor business ran from Nelson, B.C., east to Regina, with Blairmore and Coleman the natural hinge of it. Albertans voted in a plebiscite on November 5, 1923, and legal sales did not outlast the case by much.
