Golden Square Mile
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Square Mile or Golden Square Mile French: Mille Carré or Mille carré doré |
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Ravenscrag, built for Sir Hugh Allan in 1863
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 Square Mile or Golden Square Mile
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| Coordinates: 45°30′04″N 73°34′56″W / 45.501111°N 73.582222°WCoordinates: 45°30′04″N 73°34′56″W / 45.501111°N 73.582222°W | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Quebec |
| City | Montreal |
| Borough | Ville-Marie |
The Square Mile and also known as the Golden Square Mile (officially in French: Le Mille Carré and also known as Mille carré doré) is the nostalgic name given to an urban neighbourhood developed principally between 1850 and 1930 at the foot of Mount Royal, in the west-central section of downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. During that period, those who lived there, and Montrealers alike, referred to the area as 'Uptown' or 'New Town'. It was only from the 1930s that Montrealers began to refer to it as the "Square Mile". The addition of 'Golden' was coined by Montreal journalist Charlie Lazarus and has connections to more contemporary real-estate developments.
From the 1790s, the anglophone business leaders of Montreal, who included and succeeded the men of the Beaver Club, started to look beyond Old Montreal for spacious sites on which to build their country homes. They developed the farmland of the slopes of Mount Royal north of Sherbrooke Street, then nothing more than a quiet country lane. The mansions they built there came to represent a period of prosperity when Canada was at its economic peak and Montreal was its unrivalled cultural and financial capital.
The owners and operators of the overwhelming majority of Canadian rail, shipping, timber, mining, fur and banking industries consisted of a small group of about fifty men who called the Square Mile 'home'. From about 1870 to 1900, 70% of all wealth in Canada was held by this small group. By 1900, the Bank of Montreal's assets and transactions were equal to any of its counterparts on the , and those assets were twice that of the Bank's nearest Canadian competitor.
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Wikipedia