Century-old Cabri Hotel, centre of community life, burns to the ground.

It will behard for Cabri residents to imagine life without their 110-year-old hotel at its centre, but on Saturday, the building burned to the ground.

"I can't walk down the street without seeing people with tears in their eyes. Everybody's just devastated,"said Wendy Johnson, who bought the hotel in 1999.

"Nobody that I know, knows life without the hotel. It's like we're mourning our best friend."

Johnson operated the hotel until two years ago when she decided to take a more 9-to-5 job, and leased the Cabri Hotel to another family who was using those payments to buy the business.

One of the new owners along with a staff member was staying in the hotel Saturday when the smoke alarms went off.

They both made it out unharmed, Johnson said.

By the time she got the call around 2:15 a.m. CST it was clear the hotel was in trouble.

Smoke was pouring out the chimney, which isn't used for heating the building.

By 9 a.m. the next morning the only thing left was the hotel's three-story brick chimney and a century's worth of memories.

Social centre

It's where the town's residents went to laugh, celebrate and mourn. Young couples held their bridal showers at the Cabri Hotel.

Later, those same people, now expectant mothers, gathered with friends and family for baby showers in its restaurant.People attended wakes and funerals there, mourning loved ones as good times made way for life's inevitable sorrows.

In between there was a whole lot of fun.

Live bands played many a weekend for hotel patrons in the town of just under 400 people 399 to be exact.

"It was the hub of the community. In sad times, in happy times. That's where people would gather," Johnson said.

A Facebook page dedicated to the hotel, which was built in 1912, is filled with pictures of people dancing, drinking and just generally having a great time.

American goose hunters would return every year renting out one of the hotel's 32 rooms and renewing friendships with people living in the town307 kilometres northwestof Regina.

It doesn't seem like much happened of significance in Cabri that wasn't celebrated, debated or mourned at the Cabri Hotel.

"I called my bar Wendy's Stadium. Every time there was football games, we'd have 30 or 40 people gather and cheer on our little Saskatchewan Roughriders, which we love dearly," Johnson said.

Since the fire, Johnson has received many messages of support, along with pictures and memories of good times and sad at the Cabri Hotel.

"I had a woman in her 90s in Saskatoon call meand she's devastated," Johnson said.

Cabri Mayor David Gossard got the call about the fire early Saturday morning and arrived to watch the hotel burn to the ground.

"We just set up and watered everything around it and watched the old girl go," Gossard said.

"It's a big blow."

While the hotel's destruction is devastating to the community it could have been worse.

Fire department officials managed to stop the fire from spreading to the Legion Hall next door and several other nearby businesses.

Like others in the community, Gossard can't imagine small-town life without the hotel.

"The young kids they called it their living room. They hung out there lots."

"It's terrible. We've had wakes in there we've had parties in there. We've celebrated baseball championships and hockey championships."

"You know how difficult it will be to even get another pub? It's very sad," Gossard said.