This painting shows the Old CPR line through Eastview (now Vanier) as it would have appeared in 1955, per the license plate on the Sico-mobile. The rail line saw its maiden run a little over 100 years previous, on Christmas Day 1854, as the Bytown & Prescott Railway (B&PR). The stretch of track shown here carried its last train in 1966 — the right-of-way would become the Vanier Parkway.
The characters in the foreground look just like my mom and I. The fashions and the vehicles (actual fenders and super wide white-walls) are just like I remember them.
The Butler Motel, just visible at the left of the canvas, is a minor anachronism. The Reliance Motor Court didn't rebranded as the "Butler" until the summer of 1960 (see below).
Although displayed as a mural, "Sunset Crossing" is actually a very large painting executed on a tarpaulin. The artist is Robin Burgesse — read his bio at the Kanata Civic Art Gallery here and visit his website here. Mr Burgesse has managed to combine the crazy sway of a Thomas Hart Benton painting with the fraught, semaphoric flatness of an Alex Colville.
I photographed "Sunset Crossing" in August of 2013 (Canon EOS M), when it it was hanging over the front entrance of the Hobby House on Montreal Road. I haven't been out that way for a while, but according to Google Street View it was still on view there as of last summer.
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Now back to that Butler business...
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| ostensibly from 1933, as posted on eBay |
Before the Butler became a full-blown sixties-style motel, it was the Reliance Motor Camp. This is a snap of the Reliance from 1933. Notice that describes itself as a camp rather than a motel, although by this time its function had well-evolved toward the latter. The cabins (you're looking at half of them right there) may look rustic but this part of Eastview was a well-established village by then.
The cabins were some 50 metres back from Montreal Road and roughly 70 metres from the train tracks. Somehow, I doubt that couples who rented them by the night were bothered by the noise. I rather think they howled and giggled when the train went by.
I happen to have an aerial view from the same year (source).
That's the Cummings Bridge to the upper left, with Montreal Road crossing the top half of the picture. The CPR track curves downward toward the right hand edge. I've highlighted what I figure to be the campground in yellow, with "Cabins 5, 6, 7 and 8" backing onto the western property line. The yellow arrows point at what look like four gas pumps — all-in-all tres motor-oriented.
Montgomery Street angles across the left of the photo. I've marked the #307, Eastview Public School (later the J. O. Swerdfager PS, then le Trillium, now l’école élémentaire publique Mauril-Bélanger) with green arrows.
And about the date of the "Butler" name... Here's part of an article published by the Ottawa Citizen on May 12 1960. The piece discusses local liquor license applications made to the LLBO. In that context, the clipping speaks for itself.
So. As of May 1960, the Reliance Motor Court, owned or otherwise represented by two gentlemen named Butler, was in the process of sinking almost half a million dollars into a major upgrade of its Montreal Road operation. Want ads seeking staff for the "new Butler" motel would appear in local papers later that summer.
And I must say I almost shit myself reading Mrs. Stevenson's comment. I'm sure she meant well. Sadly, it hadn't occurred to her that tourists (from more enlightened, less boring jurisdictions) might actually be grateful to enjoy a drink or several, on the premises, without then having to get back in their cars, et cetera.
Anyhow, here's an advertisement from November 1960 that warms my heart no end...
(The Butler is now the Ottawa Plaza Inn.)
