Warning: nudity, drug, and alcohol use
Image courtesy of the Niagara Falls Public Library, Petrie Collection
The small railway hotel and tavern near the Rainbow Bridge of Niagara Falls, Ontario at Bridge St. and Erie St. was named seven times during its 125-year history.
For decades, the hotel was known for basic rooms, meals, stabling horses, and postal delivery.
Since its inception, the building had been called the Suspension Bridge (1853), the Waverly (1880s-90s), the Arlington (mid-1890s), the New Arlington (mid-1930s) the Erie Hotel and the Avon House (1950s), and, finally, the hotel was named the Klondike Hotel in 1960.
On the rough side of town, it became well known that, for regular, law-abiding folk, just going there was risky.
Over the years, there were constant law enforcement interventions about alcohol, drug, health, solicitation, strip club, and vice regulations.
There were continuous police citations for a myriad of recidivist by-law and civil infractions and criminal code violations.
Lawlessness prevailed, and the characters around the scene acted with impunity;
The Klondike had become a well-known bane to the civilized community.
One day, while I was researching the interesting landowner lineage of the plot at Sam’s Montrose Hotel/Motel at Montrose and Lyons Creek roads in Niagara Falls (my research paper found at Niagara Falls Museum in the Thompson/Thomson files collection),
I was in a public telephone booth calling the hotel for deed information, and I became a part of a peculiar telephone call misconnection.
I was confusedly speaking with a confused woman who was also telephoning Sam’s Montrose. I asked her name. She said her name was Cinnamon. Dare I say that I don’t know how she spelled her name.
Curious, I asked her where she was calling from. She replied, “the Klondike.” She added that she was working there. Intrigued, I felt a song coming on. I asked if I could meet her at the Klondike to talk person-to-person for ten to fifteen minutes, so I could take some notes. Honestly, that was my aim.
I went down to the Klondike to chat with this muse. As I walked through the door, facing me — three feet in front of me, on a raised runway stage — there was a full-frontal nude exotic dancer called Bambi. She was gyrating to Stevie Wonder’s major hit “Sir Duke.” As I stood before her, she opened her arms wide and shimmied. I heard the blasting lyrics, “You can feel it all over, you can feel it all over, you can feel it all over.” Believe me, I could feel it all over. The small lobby’s barroom was overcrowded, and marijuana and drunkenness were apparent. Bedlam reigned everywhere.
I briefly spoke with Cinnamon; she was so completely unimpressive that I took no notes. There was no song arising from this occasion. I quickly left, sensing the high tension in the thick, smoky air.
Everything about the Klondike festered until the hotel met its final fate.
Thank goodness no one was injured, but the building sustained a dynamite explosion in 1978.
One wonders why, over time, the police investigator
Never caught the perpetrator.
Rumors were that police facilitated the deed. The person(s) involved — never found.
Finally, in 1980, the officially condemned, unsafe building was demolished to the ground.
The land where The Klondike once stood is presently part of the Niagara Falls Ontario Bus Terminal site.
Today, word on the street is that, in the shadow of the Klondike area’s history, it’s not a neighborhood to walk through in the dim light of night.
Source: The author, 2026
Author’s note:
The poem “Klondike Hotel,” a Niagara Falls atypical rhyming piece is one of five ̶ what I call ‘rambling poems’ ̶ comprising the unpublished work Rambling Reminiscences.
Glenn Bridenbaker:
Happily married to beautiful and wise muse wife Cheryl since 1967. Two brilliant sons, a gorgeous daughter. Two glorious granddaughters, an excellent grandson. Ontario residences: Toronto, Manitoulin Island, Wikwemikong Unceded Indigenous Reserve, Niagara Falls, and Ridgeway. Bibliophile. Musician. Nonprofessional writer. Amateur oil and watercolor painting. Novice Oriental Brush Painting. Art collector. Musical instruments and recorded music collector. Numismatist and philatelist. Dog and cat owner. Home vegetable, flower, and landscape gardener. Birdwatcher. Astronomy and space aficionado. Meaningful values include: know thyself, family, health, common sense, truth, logic, integrity, sharing, creativity, curiosity, quality, arts appreciation, and humor. Two years graduate student of Marshall McLuhan at the Centre for Culture and Technology.
