EMILY HSUEH
SHAWVILLE Feb. 17, 2021
Though the dining room is empty, the walls of Café 349 are filled with old photos providing a glimpse into the area’s history.
The restaurant on Main Street remains open only for take out, but that doesn’t mean they can’t . . .
display art on their walls. Currently, visitors to the café can stop in to pick up a meal and take in some historical photos, provided by the Pontiac Historical Society.
“It’s from the Historical Society, it’s photographs that they would have in the storage at the museum,” said café owner Ruth Hahn. “They did show once before about three or four years ago and it really brought a lot of interest, people loved to look at all the photographs, so I asked if they could bring it back. But unfortunately there are no customers to see it.”
From old classrooms, sports teams and architecture, it isn’t hard for patrons to get lost in time. For Hahn, one picture in particular caught her eye: a large, two-storey building that was once situated just down the road from Hahn’s business.
It was called the Russell House or the Russell Hotel, and sat where the pharmacy currently is.
“It’s just such a magnificent looking building. It’s so large, it’s hard to imagine it was actually where the pharmacy is here on Main Street,” Hahn said. “I just marveled at what this town must have been like. You know, I can remember as a child Main Street being busy, but how it must have been so busy when there was a train running through here everyday … I just can’t imagine how busy it must have been, a totally different town.”
Hahn was so curious, she asked Glen Ansell, the one who put up the photos, to delve deeper into the history of the Russell House. He reported that it was opened in 1874 by John Alfred McGuire who came to Shawville from Goulborne, a region just south of Ottawa.
“Business boomed after the railroad came to Shawville in 1886. At that time, Mr. McGuire purchased a horse drawn bus that had been used by the Russell Hotel in Ottawa,” Ansell informed Hahn in an email. “This bus carried passengers from the train station located up on Railroad St. back and forth to the hotel . A second horse drawn bus carried the passenger’s luggage.”
It was a hotspot for lumber men to come and drink after work, so when the termperance movement struck and took the hotel’s liquor license away in 1903, they had to shut down due to lack of business.
“The hotel was located far enough east in town that it was spared during the great fire of 1906. Unfortunately though, it burned down in 1921 and was never rebuilt,” Ansell wrote.
Hahn was pleased with the new information, something she had asked customers for but no one remembered the hotel. Now she hopes people will come by to visit the exhibit to learn more.
“Come in and wander around, have a look at the pictures. It’s a nice time and the room is empty. You can take all your time and just look at our history,” she said.
