CHATEAU FRONTENAC

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 13, 16 January 1926, Page 7

CHATEAU FRONTENAC

DAMAGED BY FIRE

SOCIAL LIFE OF QUEBEC DIS-

RUPTED

(UNITED PUESS ASSOCIATION— COPYRIGHT.) (AUStttAUAN-mW ZBALAND CABLB ASSOCIATION.) (Received 16th January, 10 a.m.) QUEBEC, 15th January.

The original wings and the great tower of the Chateau Frontenac, one of the world's most historic and famous hotels, is to-day in ruins. Overnight a fire destroyed the building, while the fireproof doors kept the flames clear of the new sections, in which the guests were never endangered. The damage is estimated at over 2,000,000 dollars. The city's entire social life is disrupted, as the Chateau was the centre of all activities at all times, especially during Parliament.

The establishment of a chain of hotels across Canada is not the least important of the ventures of the Can-adian-Pacific Bailway. From the Pacific to the Atlantic these hostelries are of much utility to travellers, who otherwise would frequently have to endure the discomforts of inferior accommodation so often only available in communities that are still in the early process of evolution. The Chateau Frontenac, in ' Quebec, is the most famous of these hotels, though there are others where the accommodation may be said to be on an even grander and larger scale, as in the case of the Hotel Vancouver. The Chateau Frontenac, erected on the site of the old Chateau St. Louis, is a modern hotel built on the pattern of an old chateau, and commanding magnificent views of the great St. Lawrence Biver, looking in all directions. Many famous names are interwoven into the fascinating history of Quebec, but none are more revered or rightly famous than the Comte de Frontenac, a French-Cnnadian statesman after whom this hotol was named. A few years ago the building, then not nearly so large and well appointed as it is to-day, was badly damaged by* fire. The new building, as it appears in an illustratiAn on another page of this issue of "The Post," arose phoenix-like out of the ruins, to be in turn seriously damaged in like manner, to the great disappointment of those who admire the beautiful in architecture and appointment.