1941 - The Lord Elgin - Ottawa, Ontario
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N 45° 25.299 W 075° 41.628
18T E 445720 N 5030026
Clad in Queenston limestone from the Niagara Region, the Lord Elgin Hotel was designed by Montreal architects Ross and Macdonald. The corner stone was laid by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King on 27 February 1941.
Waymark Code: WMYJF1
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 06/20/2018
Views: 8
Text on the corner stone:
THE
LORD ELGIN
A.D. 1941
The Lord Elgin Hotel
Planning for the Lord Elgin Hotel began almost immediately after the outbreak of World War II, when civic officials realized that Ottawa's acute shortage of hotel rooms would become a problem as military personnel, defence contractors and bureaucrats of all kinds began to migrate to the city to join the war effort. The project involved several wartime boards, the Departments of Public Works and National Defense, the City of Ottawa, local businessmen and Ford Hotels Inc. of Rochester, NY the company chosen to operate the Lord Elgin.The ground-breaking ceremony took place in the summer of 1940.
The cornerstone was laid on a freezing late-February day in 1941. Although he feigned a surprised delight at being asked to lay the stone, Mackenzie King had been following the design and development of the hotel with some interest. It was an opportunity to further his goals for beautifying the capital, and for King an event rife with symbolic associations.
Shortly after 2:30 pm King was joined on the dais by Mayor Lewis and contractor John Wilson. '...Mr. King was presented with a silver trowel to perform the ceremony. It was inscribed "Presented to the Rt. Hon. W.L. Mackenzie King on the occasion of the laying of the cornerstone of the Lord Elgin Hotel, February 27, 1941".' Ottawa Journal, February 28, 1941 King kept the trowel, and it's still on display in a cabinet in Laurier House.
The stone contains a fervent wartime message. 'In a hermetically sealed container, placed in the cornerstone, was a scroll signed by those taking part, copies of today's issues of the three Ottawa newspapers, and coins of the realm. The scroll was inscribed: We who are living today have faith. There'll always be an England. Democracy will always prevail.' Ottawa Journal
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