Page:Abbot's Guide to Ottawa.djvu/26

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became in turn a landing place to portage over the falls, a trading post, a supply station, a community, and finally the great milling and industrial centre it now is. The city has been devastated by several serious fires, particularly the great fire of 1900, which destroyed almost the entire city; residences, public buildings and industries disappeared before it, then, sweeping across the river, destroying the bridges in its path, it entered Ottawa, and continued for miles its course of destruction. The burnt district is now practically re-built, and the city is more prosperous than ever, and is the third largest city in the province of Quebec. Among the more important buildings are the Court House, City Hall, Notre Dame Church, the E. B. Eddy Company's Works, Gilmour and Hughson's Mills, and the International Portland Cement Works.

INDUSTRIES.

A lumber centre from birth, the twin cities still hold their own. On the banks of a mighty river, down which logs and timber must continue to float for many years, there have necessarily arisen mills to deal with the product of the forests on the banks of that river and its tributary streams. The first mill was erected at the Chaudiere in 1853. At the present time the great match factory, paper mills, etc., of the E. B. Eddy Company, the lumber and paper mills of Mr. J. R. Booth, and the lumber mills of the Hull Lumber Company, Gilmour and Hughson, and others testify to the business done. The yearly output of lumber alone is now about three hundred million feet. A visit to the lumber district will be a liberal education to a stranger. The works of the E. B. Eddy Company are said to be the largest of their kind and the most unique establishment under the British flag. Other kindred industries have followed, among them manufactures of pulp, paper, matches, indurated fibre ware, woodwork of all kinds, furniture, pianos, and cars, while a large business is done in the manufacture of tents and army supplies, calcium carbide, bricks, and commercial mica. Last, but not least, that immense industry the manufacture of Portland cement. The harnessing of the unemployed water powers must, in the near future, result in the city being one of the greatest manufacturing centres on the continent.

LANGEVIN BLOCK.

The southern departmental building, on Wellington street (a view ol which is given on page 21), is named after Sir Hector Langevin, a former Minister of Public Works. In this building are the Departments of Agriculture and Post Office, and part of the Interior Department. A modification of Italian renaissance, built of sandstone from Newcastle, New Brunswick, this handsome building loses nothing by its contrast with those on the other three sides of Parliament square.

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