Hotels and villas

Hotels and villas began appearing gradually in Vieux-Terrebonne in the early nineteenth century. Between 1870 and 1900, two hotels are particularly popular with tourists: the Oscar Dugas Hotel on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Street, facing Saint-André Street, and Hotel du Boulevard (J.-B. Bernardin) located at the entrance of Île-des-Moulins, facing the public square.
Hotel du Boulevard is sold to the Bernardin scion (Louis-Theodore), who built a new hotel across the street. The L.-T. Bernardin Hotel eventually takes the name of Happy Home Inn, then Hotel des Mille-Îles until it burned down in 1971.

For its part, the Hotel Oscar Dugas is one of the most rural in the city; it is also considered a first-class hotel by guests staying there. Many coaches are headed to the hotel along Saint-Jean-Baptiste Street at the exit of Terrebonne Bridge, by the river. The building was destroyed by fire in 1922. Today a private residence has been built where the hotel once stood.

WHAT MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION HELPED THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIEUX-TERREBONNE?

CHOICES
1) The bus
2) The train
3) The stagecoach
4) The steamboat

4) The steamboat

Before the inauguration of the Montreal-Quebec railway in 1879, the steamboat is one of the most important means of transportation for Terrebonne, both to carry goods and people. The first "steamer" rides the Mille-Îles River (back then called Jesus River) as early as 1820. In 1856, the Société de navigation de Terrebonne inaugurates the steamer called "Terrebonne." Weighing more than 350,000 pounds , it is nearly forty metres in length.

The steamboat provides daily trips to Montreal. It also serves the cities of Lachenaie, Saint-Paul-l'Ermite, l'Assomption, le Bout de l'Île, Varennes, and Boucherville. It greatly contributed to the development of tourism in the Terrebonne area. One of its pilots, Captain Louis-Hilarion Roy, was also from Terrebonne.