Russell House (Ottawa)
The Russell House was Ottawa’s leading hotel for many years. It stood at the corner of Sparks Street and Elgin Street, where Confederation Square is today. The site’s first hotel opened in the 1840s as Campbell’s Hotel. In 1863 James Gouin bought it and renamed it the Russell House, after a U.S. family for whom he had once managed a Quebec City hotel. Gouin later built the Caledonia Springs Hotel and became Ottawa’s Postmaster.
In the 1870s a new dining room wing was added, and in 1880 the old building was torn down and rebuilt in the Second Empire style.
For decades the Russell House hosted politicians, visitors, and celebrities. Wilfrid Laurier lived there for ten years before moving to Laurier House. International guests included Oscar Wilde and Anna Pavlova.
The hotel is also part of Ottawa’s sports history. In 1876 Ottawa’s first rugby team, the Ottawas, formed there and played their first game three days later, a club that would become the Ottawa Rough Riders. In 1892 a dinner at the Russell House for the Ottawa Hockey Club led Governor-General Lord Stanley to announce the Stanley Cup.
By the 1920s the hotel was aging and costly to run. It closed as a hotel on October 1, 1925, though ground-floor shops stayed open. A fire on April 14, 1928 largely destroyed the building, and it was demolished by November. The land was later used to expand Elgin Street into Confederation Square. Some artifacts from the Russell House are in the Bytown Museum.
Details: the hotel had about 250 rooms and one restaurant.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:08 (CET).