50 Years | 50 Stories

In celebration of our 50th anniversary in 2017, Heritage Ottawa created our popular online series entitled 50 Years | 50 Stories. Entries are updated regularly as new interventions arise.

This valuable resource shares the illustrated stories of 50 buildings that Heritage Ottawa helped to save and preserve over the course of our first 50 years of advocating for our city's heritage structures. Read about the architectural and historical significance of these important places, the threats they faced, and the people who mobilized to save them. A few stories are about buildings lost along the way—making our appreciation for the successes even greater. Many thanks to Heritage Ottawa member and architectural historian Ken Elder for the considerable hours of research he devoted to this project.

All 50 stories are also published in French. Vous pouvez les lire ici.

Heritage Ottawa gratefully acknowledges the support of Ontario150 for this project.

30. St. Brigid's Church | St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts

St. Brigid’s Church was built for the English-speaking, mainly Irish Catholic parishioners of Notre Dame Cathedral in Lowertown. Completed in 1892, the imposing edifice was designed by…

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29. Hangar 66 | Rockcliffe Airport

Hangar 66 was one of three identical double hangars built in 1940 at the RCAF Rockcliffe Air Station to serve the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). The hangars were erected by the Royal Canadian…

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28. Caplan's Department Store

Caplan’s Department Store began in 1897 as a small dry goods store on Rideau Street. Founded by Caspar Caplan, who had arrived from Lithuania in 1893 with less than a dollar in his pocket, it eventually grew to become…

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27. St. Charles School / Schoolhouse Square

The former St. Charles School, designed by Moses Edey (1845-1919) and Francis Sullivan (1882-1929) for the Ottawa Roman Catholic Separate School Board, was built in 1910 to serve the…

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26. Ottawa Police Headquarters

Purpose-built to replace the deteriorating police station on Queen Street (constructed in 1888-1889), the Ottawa Police Headquarters on Waller Street was designed by noted modernist architect Peter Dickinson (1925-1961) of Page and Steele…

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25. The Atwood, 101 Rideau Street, and the Featherstone Building

Dating from the late-Victorian and Edwardian eras, these three adjacent buildings on the north side of Rideau Street, west of William Street, form part of a block-long, historic commercial streetscape…

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24. Central Experimental Farm: Part 2

The designation of the Central Experimental Farm (CEF) as a National Historic Site in 1998 was a watershed moment in the Farm’s history. With its scientific importance internationally recognized, its key role in securing Canada’s food security…

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23. Central Experimental Farm: Part 1

The Central Experimental Farm (CEF) was established in 1886 by the Government of Canada. It includes an administrative core and range of support buildings, arboretum, ornamental gardens, display beds and experimental fields in a picturesque setting…

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22. Clegg-Feller Building | Windsor Smoke Shop

The Clegg-Feller Building is the oldest surviving examples of commercial architecture in Ottawa, according to architect Julian Smith. The five-bay commercial block on the northwest corner of Dalhousie and Rideau streets was likely built on speculation in 1864…

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21. ByWard Market Heritage Conservation District

The ByWard Market is named after Lieutenant-Colonel John By, who in 1827 drained and cleared the area’s dense cedar bog creating a commercial, non-military sector of Bytown to accommodate…

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