Click on the picture to see a larger version.

Above: Hull's Rue Principale (Main Street) after the fire. Below A map showing the exent of fire damage in Hull and Ottawa.

Source:

Top: (Fire, Hull-Ottawa) Looking Down Main Street, Hull, P.Q. [April, 1900] (Canada. Dept. of Mines and Technical Surveys / Library and Archives Canada / PA-023235). Bottom: Plan showing extent of Ottawa-Hull conflagration, Thursday, April 26th, 1900). Toronto, Montreal: Charles E. Goad (Library and Achives Canada, Archival Reference no. R6990-519-3-E).

Last Trip: The Death of Alfred Bonenfant / 4

Ottawa and Hull

Ottawa, Ontario and Hull, Québec were sister cities located on opposite sides of the Ottawa River although Ottawa was almost five times the size of Hull. Today Hull is part of metropolitan Gatineau.

Between 1901 and 1911 Ottawa's population grew from just under 60,000 to just over 87,000 while Hull's increased from about 14,000 to a little over 18,000.

Both cities were ravaged by a devastating fire on April 26, 1900. The damage to Ottawa was greater, but Hull suffered proportionally more and its downtown businesses and industries were wiped out while Ottawa's escaped relatively unscathed. The fire destroyed 40 percent of Hull and made 42 percent of its population homeless. About 20 percent of Ottawa's buildings were destroyed and about 14 percent of its population displaced.

Seven people died in the fire but many more succumbed to disease that spread through the crowded tent cities in which the homeless took refuge.