The Hotel Charlottetown
Walking through Charlottetown, we passed this large red-brick hotel on Kent Street. Its formal entrance, white columns and symmetrical façade make it look as though it belongs to an earlier era of travel. Originally known as the Hotel Charlottetown, it opened in 1931. It was built by the Canadian National Railway during an era when Canada’s railways were doing much more than transporting passengers. They were also building hotels and promoting destinations, encouraging travelers to use the railway to explore the country.
The Island’s first railway had begun in the 1870s, eventually contributing to the financial pressures that helped bring PEI into Canadian Confederation. By the 20th century, rail travel had become part of a very different story: tourism.
The Hotel Charlottetown was intended to provide the provincial capital with a first-class hotel capable of accommodating the growing number of visitors arriving on the Island. Its Georgian Revival design gave it a sense of permanence and dignity appropriate to a city increasingly promoting itself as both a provincial capital and the “Birthplace of Confederation”. The hotel became one of Charlottetown’s important gathering places. Its dining rooms, ballrooms and public spaces hosted community events, political gatherings, celebrations and prominent visitors.
One of its most notable periods came in 1964, when Charlottetown celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Charlottetown Conference. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visited Prince Edward Island during the centennial celebrations, and the Hotel Charlottetown was among the places associated with their visit. The hotel would host members of the Royal Family and other distinguished guests over the years.
We tend to think about historic hotels simply as places where people slept, but the great railway hotels were part of the development of Canadian tourism. The railways transported people to destinations and then helped create the accommodations that made those destinations attractive places to visit. Passenger rail service on Prince Edward Island eventually disappeared altogether in 1969, but the hotel survived.
Today it is the Rodd Charlottetown. Its original purpose has continued even though the trains that helped create it are long gone. Travelers still arrive in Charlottetown, still explore its streets and waterfront, and still stay within the walls of the hotel built to welcome visitors nearly a century ago.
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