The Centre of Ottawa Imagined, circa 1910

The Centre of Ottawa Imagined, circa 1910

No better place to start a postcard tour of Ottawa than the centre of town. Here’s a postcard that shows how it was imagined that the centre of the city would look in 1913, when what I will call the Plaza Project was finished. I say “imagined”...
The Old Post Office

The Old Post Office

Our previous postcard showed what the Plaza was expected to be like in 1913. This one shows more of what it was actually like in the years 1905 to 1912, before the Plaza Project was completed. We have Sappers’ Bridge on the left, leading to Sparks Street....
Looking down to the Plaza

Looking down to the Plaza

Looking down the Rideau Canal towards the Old Post Office sometime between 1904 and 1913. This postcard gives us a great look at the Old Post Office as it was rebuilt after a fire in February, 1904. People were as desperate to get their mail from the Post Office as we...
Union Station Imagined

Union Station Imagined

As with the Bird’s Eye view of the Plaza, the J. Valentine company was so eager to publish a postcard of Ottawa’s new central station in 1908 that it couldn’t wait for the real thing. So it used this drawing of what the station was supposed to look like when it was...
The Chateau Laurier Imagined

The Chateau Laurier Imagined

Now that we’ve looked at Union Station, let’s turn our attention to the Chateau Laurier across the street. Here we have another one of those pictures of how things would look when they were finished in 1912, but drawn some years earlier. Like the other...
Entrance to the Chateau Laurier

Entrance to the Chateau Laurier

A doorman awaits the arrival of guests under the portico of the Chateau Laurier in a postcard dated to 1914, the end of what is often called the Long Nineteenth Century brought out by World War One. I really like this picture. The composition is so dramatic. It’s one...