Robert Smythe
It ranks among the City’s oldest parks – and, like the community it serves, this patch of green has been tenacious in fighting for its survival. Plouffe Park’s origins emerged from disaster.
Railway tracks for the wood processing industries at the Chaudière had penetrated what’s now the Preston Street corridor by the early 1870s. Lumber piling yards soon followed, spreading over the western edge of Dalhousie Ward. These tinder-dry stacks would be consumed in the Great Fire of April 26, 1900 along with much of the area from Booth Street west to the railway tracks.
There was a beneficial outcome. Vacant lots for housing, less flammable businesses, and maybe even a park, were now available. Within a year, the area’s representative on Ottawa City Council had taken up the cause.
Under the headline “NEW PARK LIKELY” on June 15, 1901, The Ottawa Journal wrote, “It is likely that there will soon be another park in Dalhousie ward. Yesterday the Mayor, Ald. Plouffe and Commissioners Butterworth and Mclean visited the proposed park on the corner of Somerset and Preston Streets and were very pleased with the location. The question of the purchase is but one of price. It is said that the park may be called Plouffe Park in recognition of the efforts of the alderman from Dalhousie ward who has worked night and day in order to have a park in his ward.”
Fighting off attempts to quash the park
Alderman Moise Plouffe had been pushing hard for a park in his ward since being elected to Council in 1901, and in the months that followed had to fight off several attempts from fellow aldermen to quash the proposal.
It took another year for the city to complete the transaction. After some rancorous debates at council, in June of 1902 the city treasurer paid the Export Lumber Co. the sum of $11,000 to purchase “Plouffe’s Park” (a not inconsiderable sum for the time).
He cautioned that, while “The new Parks Committee has not much money at its disposal an endeavour will be made to fix up, in some manner at least, the property this year and pave the way for more extensive improvements next summer.”
And then … a mud patch
Unfortunately, the city’s efforts to fix it up were very slow in coming. For the first winter season they allowed a volunteer, Mr. G. Raymond (whom the papers cruelly referred to as a “cripple”) to build a skating rink. But the city quickly descended on the park with police when he set up a warming shack without official approval, demolishing it and carrying away the pieces.
For its first half decade, much of the park was used for such things as storing telephone poles, and hauling away its sandy soil. In 1903, an Ottawa Citizen headline blared “PLOUFFE PARK A MUD PATCH… City Has No Money to Beautify It.”
In contrast to this news, at the same time landscape architect Frederick G. Todd was recommending to the Ottawa Improvement Commission that the OIC rent the still unbuilt park from the City of Ottawa, and rename it the “Preston Street Sq.” for “A large square that will be valuable as this part of the city becomes more crowded. Part of it could be made into an excellent playground and out-door gymnasiums, the rest being kept for park purposes.”
These well-intentioned plans were never realized and the Commission turned its attention to Strathcona and Dundonald instead.
It could have become an abattoir
The park’s fate hung in the balance. From 1904: “The Civic Industrial Committee have a new scheme to induce industries to locate in Ottawa. At a meeting last evening it was decided to recommend that Plouffe Park be advertised as sites for manufacturers. Mayor Ellis suggested leasing the park. “We will give that with pleasure,” said Ald. Slattery who thought that some of the other playgrounds might be given next after the tall chimneys dot Plouffe’s Park.”
Plouffe held them at bay, but after his departure in 1905 the rush to industrialize the park quickened. Candidate businesses included a large pottery works, a saw mill and furniture factory, the Montreal Umbrella and Suspender Company, and most ominously, the Ottawa Abattoir, a slaughterhouse that was intended for the city’s largest meat-packers.
Attitudes hadn’t changed by August 11, 1905, when The Citizen published this scolding editorial: “It is time that what is called Plouffe Park was fixed up. The thousands that go out to Britannia these nights pass by and there are many unfavourable comments on its appearance. It may have been unwise to buy the property at all, but as it was bought and paid for to the tune of about eleven thousand, it should be looked after. Nothing has ever been done in the way of improving it, and what is more, there is never the remotest suggestion at the city hall that anything should be done.”
Finally – playground equipment
The city’s lack of action finally ended when Ottawa’s Playground Committee agreed to install real playground equipment. This was met by a sternly worded petition from Oak Street residents: “When we built our houses here we did so with the understanding that it was to be a park not a playground. And now we have to endure the deafening noise made by hundreds of children who infest it from morning until nearly midnight.”
At last, in the pre-WWI years, with squealing children in the background, when sports fields had been laid out for local teams from several leagues, Plouffe Park could fulfill its founder’s initial vision.
WWI intervened
Had World War I not intervened, the City might have erected an enormous and very exotic West End Market building of some 300 stalls designed by the innovative architect Francis Sullivan in the north east corner of the park.
After years of uncertainty, the park was now at the heart of a culturally diverse neighbourhood. During the summer of 1915, it was reported that “A demonstration of the Italians of the city will be held this evening in approval of the action of Italy in entering into the war. They will gather in Plouffe Park, and will parade through the city. A band will be engaged and it is expected that several addresses in Italian will be delivered at Plouffe Park. They are very enthusiastic and most of them are ready to return to their country when they are called.”
Plouffe Park would also serve as Ottawa’s most popular circus grounds. An early arrival was “The Mighty Haag Show” which paraded elephants, camels, plumed horses, clowns riding piebald ponies, and a monster calliope into the park on a humid afternoon on June 3, 1914.
“The procession was a little late but was certainly a big success. There was quite a large crowd at the show in Plouffe Park”. Circuses big and small continued to set up in Plouffe Park into the 1930s.
A sad ending for Alderman Plouffe
Sadly, Moise Plouffe met an untimely end, mysteriously disappearing from his Rochester Street home on Monday, June 26, 1911. “Since then the best efforts of his friends and the police were powerless to locate him. The anxiety of his family was increased by the knowledge that the missing man was in ill health and at times irrational.” (Ottawa Journal, July 3, 1911).
One week after he vanished, Plouffe’s body was found floating in the Rideau River near Strathcona Park. Foul play was not suspected.
The Journal’s story concluded: “He was always considered one of the ablest men who sat at council in those days. Plouffe Park in Dalhousie Ward is a result of his personal efforts and was named in his honor.”