Sparks Street - History

History

Located one block south of Wellington Street (the home of the Parliament of Canada), Sparks Street is one of Ottawa's more historic streets with a number of heritage buildings. The street is named after Nicholas Sparks, the farmer who, early in the mid-nineteenth century, cut a path through the woods on his holding that would eventually become the street.

When Ottawa was selected as Canada's capital the area became even more important as the street became home to a number of government offices and homes for parliamentarians. One of these was Thomas D'Arcy McGee who, in 1868, was assassinated outside his home at the corner of Sparks and Metcalfe. The street also became Ottawa's commercial hub and was home to a number of the city's banks and the lumber companies of the Ottawa Valley. It once contained the Murphy-Gamble (later Simpson's), Morgan's, C.Ross, and Bryson-Graham's department stores.

The peak of the street was in the early twentieth-century when a number of Beaux-Arts buildings that still stand were erected. At the time, the eastern end of Sparks Street continued across the Rideau Canal on Sappers Bridge. Where the War Memorial and Confederation Square stands today, was the Russell House hotel, and Ottawa's old Post Office. The square was built in the 1930s.

As the city expanded the downtown became less centralized and commerce spread to neighbouring streets. Government ministries, requiring larger offices, also went elsewhere. In 1959 the street's streetcar line was closed, further hurting business.