Carlsbad Springs, Ontario

Carlsbad Springs is a community on Bear Brook in eastern Ontario, Canada; it is currently a part of the city of Ottawa.

Carlsbad Springs

Mineral Spa-Hotel Era: 1870–1930

This village near Canada's capital city of Ottawa was first known as Boyd's Mills, after the proprietor of the local mill on the Bear Brook, first to process white pine lumber, later a grain mill when the land was cleared in the eary 19th century and wheat farming began, later as Eastman's Springs, for Danny Eastman, who built the first inn to lodge travelers. In 1870, businessmen including future Ottawa mayor C.W. Bangs formed the Dominion Springs Company to build a spa-hotel, offering as a recreational and medical benefit the highly mineralized water found in most local wells.

In 1882, a railway through the area brought travelers from farther distant. The track is now the main railway line between Ottawa and Montreal, although a single track at Carlsbad Springs, which lost its local railway station in the 1970s.

Early in the 1900s the hotel became a successful resort, attracting the upper classes of nearby Ottawa. As well as mineral waters and sulphur baths, they ennjoyed guest lecturers, walking paths, horseback riding facilities, archery, billiards, and lawn games, and the mineral water was bottled and sold throughout North America. As a marketing device the village was in 1906 renamed Carlsbad Springs after the most fashionable aristocratic resort in central Europe (now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic,) where King Edward VII regularly took holidays. The resort spa did not survive the Depression of the 1930s. The all-wood hotel, the largest in the county for many years, became apartments in 1945 and was demolished in the 1980s.

1930s–1970s

Familly farms and the big hotel helped the community grow in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but Carlsbad Springs' boom as a resort ended in the Great Depression of the 1930s, and by WWII, the resort and spa business dwindled. Most of the surrounding land was small dairy or chicken farms (up to 200 acres).

Unsuccessful official planning altered the local economy in the 1960s when the Ontario government proposed rebuilding Carlsbad Springs as a commuter city outside Ottawa's Green Belt (200 sq. km.). Keen to co-operate, the National Capital Commission started acquiring farmland nearby, to provide the satellite city with its own Green Belt. Only then did it come to light that the local Leda clay soil cannot support tall buildings. Plans for the satellite city were abandoned, but the NCC retained thousands of acres of farmland, with no plans for whether or how it might be used. Some of the landed was rented to farmers, but these diminished as the agricultural economy shrank in the 1980s.

1980s–present

As Carlsbad Springs was conveniently accessible from the main highway that runs through Ottawa (highway 417), it was attractive to commuters with jobs in the city. By the 1980s, gradual development took place in Carlsbad Springs, with modest homes on large, treed lots. Nonetheless, a semi-rural feel was maintained, due to the absence of subdivisions, and to the continued existence of a range of agricultural activities, ranging from berry-picking farms, horse-related businesses (e.g., equestrian boarding facilities), and hobby farms.

Franco-Ontarian culture has a dominant influence on the area, which can be seen in the French-language signs and in the active presence of spoken French in homes and community activities. In the wintertime, snowmobiling is both a well-loved Carlsbad Springs activity and a practical way of traveling throughout the area, as attested by the snowmobile trails that run alongside the areas' major roads.

In the mid-1990s, one of the remaining spring houses was restored, so that the community would be able to remember Carlsbad Springs' past as a bustling resort and spa area. As well, Carlsbad Springs continued to attract other development, including a large golf course that was built close to highway 417. When Carlsbad Springs was amalgamated into the City of Ottawa, there was a mixed response from the community. While some residents were pleased that city services such as bus transportation would be available, other residents were concerned that the City of Ottawa's urban bylaws and regulations would stifle the area's semi-rural lifestyle.

The long awaited new Community Centre for Carlsbad Springs is being built in the summer of 2010. The architect for the centre is the same one as the Shenkman Art Centre that was built in Orléans last year near the Orleans Town Centre. The new Carlsbad Springs Community Centre will have a gymnasium, a multi-purpose room, a meeting room, a small office and a lobby area. The centre will be able to accommodate a variety of events in the gymnasium, from private receptions to community events. Local recreational sports such as volleyball, basketball, badminton and others will be organized in the new recreational facility. Opening of the new centre is set for early 2011. Harkness Park, with its baseball field, a tennis court, a kids playground area, the new community centre and the surrounding facility will become the sports and leisure hub for the Carlsbad Springs community and rural east Ottawa. The official ground breaking ceremony for the new $3.2 million community centre in Carlsbad Springs was held June 13 at 3:30 p.m. Joining the Cumberland Councillor Rob Jellett for the ceremony was Ottawa-Orléans M.P. Royal Galipeau, Ottawa-Orléans M.P.P. Phil McNeely, Mayor Larry O’Brien, Joan Goyette, Carlsbad Springs Community Association's Communications Director and Community Association President Denis Labrèche. “This centre funded through the Federal, Provincial and Municipal infrastructure program is just what the doctor ordered for Carlsbad Springs,” says Jellett. “It will provide a gymnasium and meeting space for all sorts of community activities.” Full construction will start in July with the centre to open in early 2011.

See also

• List of Ottawa neighbourhoods