Des Carrieres Street panoramas - this was once a legendary street .. do you know why?

Here's a history of that area, as translated and adapted from a work by Robert Prevost, published in 1938.

In 1774 a British militia officer named Mr. Fay was one of the few who lived North of what's now Mount Royal Avenue, then an area of thick forest. He and a few scouts chopped down some clearances.

The area was rife with streams and creeks where people could hunt, collect nuts and kids could play Indian.

Underfoot in the clearings sat calcified stone and when the dirt was cleared a blueish rock was uncovered. It wasn't particularly useful but many homes in Montreal have these as their foundations.

Under that layer sat a thin strata of extremely hard rock which was deemed to be excellent for construction. It was a massive discovery because Montreal was growing fast and new buildings were needed all over and soon the greystone was used to countless strcutures, such as the Notre Dame Cathedral, the first Montreal courthouse (1803), the Bank of Montreal (1818), the Bonsecourts Market (1845) and the second courthouse (1850).

Workers, quarrymen mostly, started streaming into homes near the quarries north of Mount Royal and soon the Belair Tannery opened in the area.

The area was administered by commissioners including Godard Lapointe, Edouard Cadorette and Jean Prenoveau, a wealthy owner of many quarries. Clan chiefs, Dupre, Martineau, Potvin and Lapointe sought incorporation for the area and in a proclamation dated 20 October 1846 the area was detached from Visitation du Sault-au-Recollet and incorporated into the Municipalite de la Cote Saint-Louis.

Over the next few years it was divided into the Village de Saint-Jean Baptiste (1861), the Village de la Cote de la Visititation (1870) the Village d'Outre-Mont (1875), the Village Saint Louis du Mile-End (1878). On 2 april 1890 the former sprawling Cote-St-Louis becamse its smaller self.

To this day Des Carrieres Street remains unique in the area for its twists and turns. That's because it was the path to the various quarries along the route. The street initially went all the way down to Mount Royal and ended at a toll get at the north end, which aimed directly towards the magnetic north.

Quarry workers settled along this road and earned the nickname Blackfoot. No relations of the eponymously named First Nations tribe. Y'see back then a stream flowed from Mount Royal North of Laurier (then called de l'Eglise) then went under a couple of bridges until finally ending up in Lafontaine Park, which was then a part of Logan farm.

The Blackfoot rock cutters of Des Carrieres were heavy drinkers and would often drink at the J. O. Villeneuve Hotel at the Southwest corner of St. Lawrence and Mount Royal. The walk left their feet caked in mud and they'd wash their feet in the horse fountain outside the hotel.

Another explanation, offered by the historian E.Z. Massicote has it that the Blackfoot would work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and after a day in the burning sun, and without such modern amenities as running water, they'd sit out in the porch with their socks and shoes off to allow their dirty feet to cool.

By the end of the 1800s the quarries started to close as extraction became increasingly costly. The good rock was harder to reach deeper in the earth and blasting dynamite to get it out was a costly enterprise.

The Pieds-Noirs Blackfoot of Carrieres street feuded with the Nombrils Jaunes - aka Yellow Navels of St. Louis du Mile End east of St. Lawrence. The Yellow Navels earned their nickname from the sallow colour of their pale skin.

The antipathy was likely political. Coteau St. Louis and its Blackfoot Village supported the Liberals and Sir Antoine-Aime Dorion. Meanwhile Saint-Louis du Mile End was Tory, led by M. Louis Beaubien, who was a respected provincial agriculture minister.

St. Louis du Mile End was initially part of part of Cote Saint-Louis but split off and was incorporated as a municipality in 1878.

The City of Montreal started at the river and ended around Duluth. Saint Jean Baptiste started and then there was St. Louis du Mile End. The Saint Jean Baptiste area was annexed to Montreal in 1884.

At the south side of the intersection of St. Lawrence and Mount Royal sat a hotel managed by Omer Vallieres, complete with a bar where a black banjo player named Johnson was a permanent attraction.

Right across the street, on the North side was the Hotel Wiseman, which was in Mile End.

The Blackfoot often met at the Hotel Vallieres and started trouble. Both Saint-Jean Baptiste and Saint-Louis had small police forces. With the annexation to Montreal the Saint-Jean Baptiste area, along with the Hotel Vallieres become part of Montreal. Suddenly the Blackfoot would have to deal with Montreal's larger police force when they went to their favourite drinking establishment. Hotel Wiseman, across Mount Royal Avenue remained in St-Louis du Mile End.

So the Blackfoot continued to drink at the Hotel Vallieres and would simply run across the street when the Montreal police came beause that force had no jurisdiction beyond Mount Royal. The drunks would toss projectiles at the police and police were helpless to pursue them.

During these years every corner store would sell whiskey from a barrell for mere pennies. On Saturday nights the Blackfoot Quarrymen of des Carrieres would fill their lunchboxes with whiskey, pop it in on their kitchen tables and all the boys would fill up a massive glass and proceed to get pickled, a welcome relief after six days of breathing stone dust into their lungs.

They'd sing.
les tailleurs de pierres
ne sont pas des gens fiers
les gros comme les petits
y boivent tous du whiskey
toujours ben contents
mais jamais grand argent
toujours esperant
de s'y voir au printemps

The Blackfoot were also known to visit Griffintown where they'd fight the Irish, who they called the Silk Stockings, largely because the Griffintowners wore ill-fitting clothing that allowed people to see their socks.

For about a decade John Spedding (aka John Speding) was the head Fireman and Police officer for Coteau Saint-Louis. He lived next to the station at Laurier and St. Denis. The station had two small cells and one big.

One day a drunken Blackfoot named Perreault started taunting Spedding from the other side of Mount Royal.

So Spedding went home, took off his uniform and - dressed in civvies - went to find Perreault, whom he found asleep on a hotel bench. Spedding gave him a beating he wouldn't soon forget. But Perreault complained and Spedding ended up having to pay an $8 fine.

Some time later, longshoremen came to Cote St Louis to have a picnic and soon started trouble. The same Perreault happened to be nearby and when Spedding called on him to deal with the troublemakers, Perreault was right at his side to help out.

Another time - according to an interview with his widow - Spedding heard a woman crying for help. A Blackfoot was chasing his wife with an axe, a citizen helped catch the perpetrator but neglected to put his suspenders on, as a result he was seen trying to run around with his pants around his ankles.

Around 1850 the French had no consulate in Montreal and official visits went unnoticed. One day the Blackfoot heard of a French minister visiting the city so they took it upon themselves to come down - wearing their trademark red belts - and give him a roaring ovation. The dignitary was so touched that upon his return to Franch, he often spoke of the Herculean strength of these stonecutters of the Montreal quarries. In 1934 Pierre-Etienne Flandin, another French minister gave a speech in Lafontaine Park and asked about the Blackfoot that he had hear about in France, asking whether they still existed.

The Blackfoot were known to jostle around with each other, frequently fighting in good natured battles. The reigning champs around 1890 were Edouard Perreault and James Haney. Perreault weighed around 265 pound and Haney, though less tall, was around 275. Perreault would boast that no Irishman could beat him and Haney would say the same about the "Canayen." The battles were referred by Francis Ethier, a great fighter in his day. One day the duo battled so hard that Perreault was hospitalized and Haney brought home. Even at 60 Perreault fought a 20 year old challenger with his right hand tied behind his back.

One great athlete from the neighbourhood was the runner Joseph Prud'homme. Hotel owner Tom Wiseman and a guy named Spalding took him on a tour of the states where he outrace competitors who were left lying exhausted by the roadside while Prud'homme would merrily carry one.

The Pronovost clan, who it was said built three quarters of the churches in Montreal were also notables, as was Judge Martineau, who'd talk about his modest childhood fishing for frogs at the brook on Laurier and running barefoot in the quarries. Telesphore Ouimet, Montreal's Chief Fireman was also a big name from the Quarrytown and Montreal's Director of City Services in the 1930s, Honore Parent spent much time among the Blackfoot as a child. Another Blackfoot notable was Georges Guilbault, who lived at 5317 Berri and became a respected bailiff at Superior Court.

Back in the day there was a race track at Mount Royal. You could only get to Coteau St. Louis by crossing the track, sometimes when the ponies were in the middle of a one mile race. The English would call the area Mile End, after the track, but the name irritated the locals and thus in 1895 it officially became known as simply Ville Saint Louis, minus the Mile End.

In 1897 Armand Clermont was named Chief of Police of Coteau St. Louis. He required some heavy persusation because the Blackfoot were constantly fighting on the old Exhibition Grounds or in the quarries. Clermont persuaded the authorities to build a courthouse in the neighbourhood. Rodolphe Lemieux, who became a Senator before passing away in the 1930s was put in charge. He worked with Clermont and soon the annual arrest rate went from around 300 to 1,700 in 1897-98.

The heart of the area was des Carrieres street, which initially included a stretch that went from Mount Royal to the CPR tracks, then known as Tannery Road. Nowadays des Carrieres is only the stretch north of the tracks.

The Blackfoot had a bad reputation for fighting and drinking, but were known as being generous and honest. But they never backed down from a fight. One day the Blackfoot were bringing stones to Ontario Street, right into the territory of the Cleric-Doctors (clerc-medecins) students who controled the area around Ontario and St. Denis. These boys also liked a fight and on this day this delivery a fight broke out with soon escalated into rock throwing and was only quelled when firemen turned hoses on the combatants.

When some Blackfoot were quarantined with smallpox, a group of others walked down St. Lawrence to the corner of Ontario, and broke the window of the village doctor who had ordered the stricken to stay inside.

The Blackfoot were useful in the time of elections. Each was paid two dollars for their work which was a good sum in those days. People would scream out "here come the Blackfoot" and stay home rather than vote.

One day a Blackfoot named Perreault developed a feud with the authorities and then invited several of his Blackfoot friends to drink a barrel of beer under the pines on the old Expisition Lands. Four officers showed up and ordered Perreault to come with him to the station. A fight ensued and Perreault and the Blackfoot prevailed. Later that afternoon 60 officers came to Cote St. Louis and arrested anybody looking suspicious or nervous. Thirty were arrested and some spent six months in jail.