The St Henri Town Hall, Police and Fire Station, (1910?)
from Collection Bibliotheque Nationale, Quebec
St Henri's history dates back to 1685 when Jean Mouchère set up a tanning workshop along the St Pierre
river. By 1825, the population of the area was 446, most of whom worked in leather tanning industries.
By 1874 the town of St Henri was formally incorporated with 2500 residents. Industrialization brought
in many industries and the workers followed. Proximity to the Lachine Canal, rail transport,
made St Henri a attractive place for manufacturers to settle.
By 1905 there were 25,000 residents. The population included unskilled, skilled and managerial classes.
Woman were included in the labour pool as well as recent immigrants and workers from rural areas of the
province. While providing work opportunities, the presence of factories brought with them many social problems
characteristic of the period. Child labour, poor working conditions, long work hours,
unsanitary living conditions and high mortality rates were just some of the problems. Many of the old houses in St Henri that now
serve as single family residences, once may have had two or three families, likely without indoor plumbing!
The stress of providing infrastructure for the rapidly growing population
resulted in St Henri commulating a heavy debt load and forced the town to merge into the city of Montreal.
The crash of 1929 and the Great Depression threw thousands out of work as demand for steel, textiles
and industrial products fell. St Henri never fully recovered from the economic crash as new factories
had a greater choice of suitable places to settle when the economy got stronger. The Lachine canal
became obsolete as a means of shipping and was finally closed in 1959, being replaced by the South Shore
Canal of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. Only in 2002 was the canal re-opened to recreation boaters.
Today St Henri is seeing a revitalization due to the return of young people to new and renovated
housing, attracted to the beauty of the revitalized canal district,
the proximity of downtown jobs and a relative low cost of living. The influx of new,
more residents is again changing the character of the community
This unfinished picture represents a view of Montreal & the Tanneries
from the "LaChine Road" - dated 1839
from National Archives of Canada
