Montréal's Eighth Wonder of the World-The Victoria Bridge
To celebrate the prince's visit to Montréal the city assembled six arches located at Jacques Cartier Square, Dalhousie Square (which would be located today near rue Notre Dame and Viger Square), Place D'Armes, Victoria Square, Rue Ste Catherine, rue Simpson, Blvd St Laurent, rue Wellington. McGill University students even erected an arch at the entrance of the college where you will now find the Roddick Gates.
There were also various other improvements made to several streets and buildings within the city.
The one improvement, which was most in the news, was "The Crystal Palace" which eventually was used for the Provincial Exhibition and was opened by the Prince of Wales as his first official function in Montréal.
The objective of "The Crystal Palace" was to display industrial and agricultural products from British North America during its initial exhibition and in future to be used as an exhibition site.
The design of this building was patterned after the Crystal Palace built for the Great Exhibition in London, England in 1851.
Unfortunately, "The Crystal Palace" never lived up to its full potential and it was very seldom used. In 1878 it was dismantled and moved to Fletcher's Field, now known as Jeanne-Mance Park on Av du Parc, and due to a fire in 1896 was destroyed.
Apart from the engineering feats at the time of the inauguration, there was abundance of social gatherings and balls.
A temporary building was erected on Rue Ste Catherine between Peel and Drummond Streets, which was to hold ten thousand people.
There was an admission fee of ten dollars for men and six dollars for women, which at the time was a great sum to pay. I guess the reason for this steep payment was to encourage only the upper classes to attend the ball. After all the Prince of Wales was the honored guest!
It was reported in the newspapers at the time that six thousand people attended this major event. It was such a success that another ball was held two days later.
The Victoria Bridge did have a very wide impact on the City of Montréal and on Canada.
Montréal merchants now had access to the Port of Portland Maine from where they could export to Britain and the rest of the world. It does not take too much imagination to understand the full economic impact this would have on the economy of Montreal and Canada.
Montréal was now at the center of economic activities and as a result
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