History of Stratford's Old Hotels   Floodtides of Fortune by Adelaide Leitch

There was the American Hotel (which became the Avon), also the Crown and the Ontario House, the old Queen's Arms with stabling for 100 horses, and then another Avon. At one time or another there flourished: the Central, the Arlington, Browning's Hotel, the Commercial, the Dog and Gun, the Falstaff, the Gladstone, the Glasgow and the Golden Inn; the G.T.R. Station Hotel, and the Junction Hotel; King's on Wellington Street, the Lake Huron Hotel later McCauley's Tavern — near the railway overpass.

The Lake Huron Hotel  was at one time one of the busiest hotels in Stratford. It got most of the railroad trade. It was known first as the Lake Huron Hotel and later as McCauley’s Tavern. What is now the Canadian National Railroad line, running over Erie street, was once the Buffalo and Lake Huron railroad. The railroad station was at the corner of Nelson and St. David streets and the Lake Huron Hotel was the only hotel close enough to the railroad to get railroad travelers. The hotel operated for about 25 years. 

At one time the hotel was considered one of the most up-to-date in Stratford. It had the usual bar and was in close proximity to a brewery which stood at the corner of St. Patrick and Erie streets. It could not be learned when the hotel closed but the gradual swing of business from that section of the city to the Downie street area, following the eastward move of the railway station, spelled its doom.”

There were: the Market Hotel and the Mathews; the New Found Out on Thereon Road at the outskirts of town; the Palmerston, the Robertson House, the Rose, the Royal, Shipman's near the station; the Stratford on Ontario Street; the Terrapin (which had the best food in town, they said); Toronto House, the Victoria, the Waverley, the Wilson House and Herron's. Pethick's Hotel near the station advertised: "Express trains stop long enough for passengers to take refreshments." Getschell's Hotel on Erie street was a favorite haunt of immigrants from Yorkshire. Charles Duperow operated a hotel for a while on Erie Street, and there were two at the Embro Road corner Chowen's and McPhee's. Another two small hostelries appeared at the junction of Guelph and Nile Streets. Succeeding with his first venture, which was Browning's Hotel on Market Square, owner Charles Browning then opened up another, the Balmoral. It, in turn, became the Mansion House, after 1876.

Like the coffee houses of the eighteenth century, some hotels had their own special clienteles. For a while, the Queen's Arms was the special headquarters of the county councilors and their friends. The Albion was considered a "Tory hang-out". The Mansion House (see St. Patrick Street) at Wellington and St. Patrick, with large stables across the street, attracted the farmers, as did the Farmers' Inn, across from the blacksmith shop. Farmers were welcome at all the establishments, of course, and the hundreds of them that hauled their wagonloads of wheat into Stratford had a lot to do with the mushrooming of the hotels.

The thirsty wayfarer did not have to go to a hotel, of course, although he might have trouble avoiding one. There were also the saloons. Most popular was Ben Sleet's (see North Street) Market Refreshment Hall near the market house, where this astute colored man advertised 'oysters, fried and pickled pigs' feet, tripe and other refreshments" as well as I 'the Best of Wines and Liquors"

In 1857, the village council asked the ratepayers to vote on a bylaw to close the saloons. Although the "yes" vote was 82-2, the bylaw was defeated because it did not win, as required, a majority of the ratepayers — who numbered 280. As if this weren't enough of booze for one community, Stratford also made— and had been catering to its citizens' thirst since the earliest whisky and beer days of settlement, when W. H. McCulloch  (see William Street) had added a distillery to his mills.

Later, Vivian's Brewery opened on St. Patrick Street, and continued, off and on, to operate under different proprietors and various names for more than a hundred years. Its product resembled British ales, using no artificial carbonation, and, for years, Vivian's was the only brewer of ale in Perth County.

It became the Formosa Springs and Perth Breweries, and was the last  independent left in Ontario in 1949, before it was acquired by Canadian Breweries, and closed down. Much later and less famous was the Empire Brewery on Erie Street And meanwhile, somewhat lost in the array of watering holes, there existed, determinedly, in Stratford the Temperance Hotel and Boarding House, which had opened in 1857. 

When the hotels began closing, Stratford acquired business blocks. The historic Albion, after 1875, was replaced by three stores — a grocery, known as the Italian Warehouse, a jewelry store (Goldsmith's Hall), and George Klein's dry goods and ready-to-wear clothing. The New Albion, on the other side of Ontario Street, one block east, had originally been the Waverley House; it too, eventually was converted into a business block.