Both of these hotels are mentioned in the “Main milendoise” walking tours given by the Amis du boulevard Saint-Laurent and Mémoire du Mile End each summer.

It’s a bit of a stretch to link Stanley Bagg’s Mile End Tavern (at the corner of Mont-Royal and Saint-Laurent) with the Mile End CPR hotel on the corner of Bernard. The closest likely link is just that they both served Mile End during the last quarter of the 19th century. There were also other hotels located between these two.

The Mile End Tavern/Hotel ceased operating around 1900. It was demolished about 1904, replaced by the Mount Royal Departmental Store in 1906. This building (somewhat modified) is still standing today on the NW corner, home to the Sara restaurant and the CLSC.

The railway was built in 1876 and Mile End station and the adjacent hotel opened in 1878 (not 1882). From the beginning it was intended as the railway hotel. (Unless the building was a converted farmhouse, it cannot have been built as early as 1850. Is that date a guess, or is it documented?)

The station itself was rebuilt larger around 1913 but it closed for good in 1931, replaced by Park Avenue Station a short distance to the northwest. Thus ended Mile End’s 45 glorious years in the train timetable from Montreal to Vancouver. The station building survived into the 1960s, but was gone by the time (perhaps because) of the construction of the Rosemont-Van Horne viaduct.

At some point the hotel became a brasserie, then by the end of the 80s it closed. One of those fires that just “accidentally” happen in abandoned buildings carried it off not long afterwards. No idea why nothing has been built there since. The surroundings are likely to see major redevelopment in the next few years (Saint-Viateur Est project) and perhaps something will finally happen with the lot.