Back to January, 1998 for our peek into Cochrane history this week.
Fire caused damage to the vacant Albert Hotel on Railway Street… as it was under renovation to become the Swan Castle Inn.
Cochrane Public Library archivist Ardis Proulx-Chedore reads from the front page report in the Cochrane Times.
“The fire began when a spark from a cutting torch used in the basement travelled through the steel pipe to the ground floor.”
Proulx-Chedore also reads that the hotel was built in 1941 by Albert Boisvert and was “popular and plush in its heyday.”
“Its past includes an indoor roller skating rink and being home to several American servicemen waiting for the radar base to be built in the 1940s.”
Also front page news that week was the ice storm in Ottawa and the rest of Eastern Ontario,and the Cochrane effort to send supplies to the people most affected by it.
Cochrane Public Lbirary Archives)
