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The German Community Hall

Black-and-white photograph of a three-story brick building. On the middle of its front, you can read Princess Hotel and on the left, you can see a door apparently leading to a basement.

Date: after 1934

Credits: BAnQ Rouyn-Noranda, Joseph Hermann Bolduc funds, “hôtels” series. 08Y,P124,S32,D396-1-4.

In the 1950s, a German club met in the basement of this building which was mainly taken up by the Princess Hotel. There were many social gatherings, including dance parties, language classes, bazaars, and so on. Around the same time, another German club met in the basement of the Rouyn’s Radio Hotel. While Germans have inhabited the sister cities since the late 1920s (they were 68 in 1931 and 108 in 1941), they arrived in greater numbers in the 1950s when the Canadian Government reinstated the right of immigration for Germans. They mainly worked in the mines.