100 years ago, the cross of Mount Royal was lit up for the first time

If you live in Montreal, it's a safe bet that you've already looked up at the cross overlooking Mount Royal. Now a symbol of the Quebec metropolis, it was lit up for the first time on December 24, 1924.

The imposing metal structure, installed 100 years ago on the summit of Mount Royal, is not the first to have been erected there. The original cross actually dates back to 1642, the year Montreal was founded. The curator and chief archaeologist of the Pointe-à-Callière museum, Louise Pothier, told her story during her visit to First of all l’info.

On Christmas Eve 1642, when Ville-Marie had still not celebrated its first anniversary, the river and a small river near the place today known as Pointe-à-Callière overflowed. One of the founders of the city, Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, was worried about the floods which threatened the fort of Ville-Marie.

He then decides to plant a cross on the banks of this small river and prays to Providence to save the cradle of Montreal, promising to plant a cross on Mount Royal if the fort is spared. A few hours later, the waters receded and Ville-Marie was spared.

The following spring, a wooden cross was installed in the vicinity of the current location of the Grand Séminaire de Montréal, north of Sherbrooke Street.

The historian and museologist Jean-François Leclerc, visiting All one morningspecifies that this cross was installed at this location at the time because it is more accessible than the true summit of Mt. This cross was toppled and replaced in 1650.

Beyond religion

Around 200 years later, Jean-François Leclerc described a Mount Royal where all the groups wanted to place symbols there. However, it is mainly members of the English-speaking elite who are present around the mountain and who make it their refuge. It was in this context that the Saint-Jean-Baptiste Society sowed the idea of ​​erecting a new cross in 1874. Its construction would finally begin 50 years later, in 1924.

The originally proposed version was to be covered in granite and have observatories in each arm. If these features were never added to the cross, it is because the financing did not match the ambitions of the designers.

In fact, the cross was financed thanks to the sale of stamps by students from primary and secondary schools in Montreal. Sold for 5 cents each, these stamps raised approximately $15,000, which represented a fortune at the time. The City of Montreal ceded land to the builders and the metal cross was erected in 1924.

It is still an extremely important event, because it forever changed the landscape of Mount Royal.

The Dominion Bridge Company was responsible for the construction of the cross and the ancestor of Hydro-Québec, the Montreal Light, Heat and Power company, supplied it with electricity.

At the time, 240 50-watt bulbs illuminated the structure, a system that was probably not not so brightdescribes Louise Pothier. In another sign of the times, a technician had to climb the structure every time a light bulb burned out in order to replace it.

It was not until 1992 that the lighting system was modernized. Since then, the cross has been equipped with a fiber optic power system and light bulbs OF THE whose colors can be changed remotely with the press of a button.

Even if the cross still represents a symbol of Christianity, its meaning today is much more than religious: it has become an emblem of Montreal. According to Jean-François Leclerc, a student even suggested adding the letters M et L on each side of the cross, which would become the T in the abbreviation of Montréal.