Built in 1894 to carry virus carrying citizens to their isolation island in the middle of the Rideau River, the iron truss bridge to Porters Island still exists...

A Sunday Ottawa Islolation History...

During the smallpox epidemics of the 19th century, the City Of Ottawa needed an isolated smallpox hospital.

City Council in 1893 chose Porter’s Island, an eight-acre, low-lying property in the Rideau River.

A quarantine island. (Map:1879)

A hastily constructed isolation hospital was built on the island.

In order to access the island, a bridge was needed, so this iron truss bridge was built for a cost of $5,000 in 1894.

All those diagnosed with the virus were taken to the island across this bridge...

Porter’s Island was then used as a garbage dump. The hospital buildings were demolished in 1904.

But another smallpox epidemic hit the city and another hospital was erected in 1910.

This time it was tents. (Photo:Topley,1912)

In 1913 the Ottawa architect Francis Sullivan, who studied under Frank Lloyd Wright, designed a new isolation hospital on the island.

Sullivan designed many notable buildings around Ottawa.

The handsomely designed new isolation hospital remained on the island until it was demolished in 1967.

The island was then developed into the Chartwell Rockcliffe Retirement Residence.

The original old isolation island bridge constructed in 1894 quietly remains.

Closed off, overgrown in summer, this little recognized iron bridge is a reminder of our city’s pandemic past...

Sources:

https://www.ottawamatters.com/remember-this/remember-this-smallpox-and-the-porter-island-isolation-hospital-1826664

http://dictionaryofarchitectsincanada.org/node/1341