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Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Rising from the ashes in Chatham-Kent
Tuesday, January 28, 2003
It's amazing how historical sites and buildings have a way of appearing and disappearing again over the years. For example, on the south west corner of King and Sixth Streets in early Chatham ( c.1840s) stood the Farmer's Exchange Hotel. Although not much to look at, it was, nevertheless a spot for men plotting the future of Chatham to meet, talk, plan and, of course, drink.This was, in 1899, replaced by one of the most elegant hotels ever to grace Chatham-Kent. Built on approximately the same site as the Farmer's Exchange the New Garner Hotel featured one hundred rooms and featured the latest hotel luxuries of the time. Rooms came equipped with steam heat, adjoining private bathroom, telephone service, electric lighting and elaborately decorated balconies trimmed in ornate wrought iron railings. It was truly a state-of-art hotel and one of the finest between Toronto and Windsor.
In addition to the modern rooms, the Garner Hotel had a well-appointed dining room and bar that compared nicely with anything that one might come upon in Europe! In addition, travelling salesmen could, in great style, show off their wares in one of the seventeen large sample rooms designed to ensure the best opportunity for them to pawn their merchandise off onto local businessmen.
On the street level of the Garner, one could find a variety of up scale boutiques, clothing stores as well as a barber shop. The hotel was designed to provide for every possible want that a guest at the Garner could wish for and, in fact, ensure that guests spent all their time within the confines of the hotel and never had a reason to leave.
On the guest list of the Garner could be found the likes of Sir John A. McDonald, Sir Wilfred Laurier, Sir Robert Borden and the Honourable Arthur Meighen. If you had any "class" at all (and could afford it!), you stayed at the chic Garner Hotel.
All this came to a spectacular end though on December 9th, 1929 when a seemingly innocuous fire began in the Garner Hotel's cafÈ. Although the Chatham Fire Department was only a few feet away (on Sixth Street) and arrived within minutes, Chief Clarence Defields quickly realized that this small fire had the potential to do a large amount of damage.
Defields quickly put in an emergency call to the Windsor as well the Wallaceburg Fire Departments. Windsor FD, according to reports, arrived on the scene with their huge La France pumper in a little more than an hour!
However, even though the Windsor pumper sucked 1,000 gallons a minute for five hours from the Thames River and into the raging Garner Hotel, the efforts of all were in vain. When the sun rose on December 10th, people from all over Chatham and Kent flocked to King Street and were greeted by a shocking and devastating site. All that was left of this beautiful, stately and elegant "lady" was a smouldering, smoking mass of bricks, charred lumber and ice. It seemed impossible that such an edifice could be brought to its knees so quickly and so totally in a matter of hours.
In addition to the Garner Hotel, the United Cigar Store, McIntyre's Drugs, Currie Humphrey Men's Wear and the Davis & Co. Drug Store were destroyed by the raging fire; however, thanks to the heroic efforts of the three departments, nearby Harrison Hall and the records stored there were saved.
The fire of December 9th was one of the worst in Chatham's history and ended up costing over $500,000 in damages as well as inflicting upon the citizens of Chatham and Kent County a psychological blow during a time, ( the Great Depression), that was already disheartening.
However, devastating the loss of the Garner Hotel was, it did not put a damper on Chatham for long. In a few years time, the indomitable spirit of Chatham and Kent County rebounded and out of the ashes of the grand old lady, the brand new William Pitt Hotel was soon taking shape.
The times may have been dark and dismal but it did little to deter the local citizenry from rebounding, re-organizing and forging ahead into an uncertain future. You know.... maybe there's something after all to that old adage about "learning from the past"!
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
