Port Lambton Hotels

Port Lambton Hotels. . Can you imagine Port Lambton with several hotels? When settlers and visitors came to the area, they needed accommodations. This inspired a vigorous hotel industry. The first hotels in this area were established in Lambton County's first community known as Bâby Point located immediately south of the what was to become the village of Port Lambton. The first two inns operating in Baby Point were the British Hotel and The Morning Star Hotel., A new dock was built in Port Lambton and it became the business centre of the area and Bâby Point declined. The year 1880 saw the first hotel built in Port Lambton: the Grand Central Hotel with 14 rooms and was later known as the Lambton Exchange. This new hotel claimed the advantage of being more conveniently located for the steamship passengers than the hotels in Bâby Point. Other early Port Lambton hotels included: McNulty's Hotel, Drew Hotel, Victoria Hotel and the Hotel Revera. In the era between the two World Wars, the most well-known hotels were the "Ohio" (originally called the Cincinnati Cottage) built in 1907 and the "Washington" (earlier known as the Washington Cottage) built in 1910., Both hotels featured handsomely built docks from which guests could rent boats, swim, fish and shipwatch. With the influx of all the passenger ships arriving at Port Lambton, the hotel trade flourished with visitors who wanted to stay longer than a day. From the late 1800s to the end of the golden era of excursion steamers in the late 1920s, there were never fewer than four hotels in Port Lambton. With the freedom that automobiles provided, overnight accommodations were no longer needed - causing the decline of the Port Lambton hotel business. The Ohio Hotel closed in 1949, The Victoria Hotel closed before it was demolished in 1961. The Washington Hotel operated periodically until 1962 when it was closed. This ended the era of Port Lambton's summer hotel resorts.