B.:1837 D.:1898
Married: Catherine Brodright
Henry Zimmerman, born in Wellesley Township, became a hotel proprietor in the village of Bamberg. About 1878 he purchased from Henry Bowman the Bowman House at the corner of King and Erb St. in Waterloo. During this era, business was growing for the hospitality industry. Hotels were not only used as a place to get a drink, to eat and a meal and find a room if you were staying overnight in town, but were also used as a boarding place for single persons working in the expanding industrial enterprises in town. Also it was becoming the custom for commercial travelers for manufacturers of clothing and other wares to rent a suite of rooms where potential customers were invited to view the merchandise and of course, write out their orders. Zimmerman found that he needed more room to accommodate this increased traffic. A brand new yellow brick addition was constructed to the rear of the hotel along Erb St. E. and opened officially in 1880. Ten years later, the original front part (since 1858) was lost in a fire and amazingly the new addition was saved. Zimmerman cleaned away the wreckage and built a new front of yellow brick to match the 1880 addition which was opened in 1890. After Zimmerman’s death in 1898, the hotel was sold to Mark Lewis who had been running the Alexandra Hotel at King St. and William St.
Sources:
1. Vonnie Haner, Licensing Houses of Entertainment in Wellesley Township 1855-1871, WHS, Vol. 76, 1988.
2. Ellis Little, Early Waterloo Hotels, Unpublished.
3. Waterloo Mt. Hope Cemetery Records.
Henry Zimmerman Biography
Description
- Creator
- Little, Ellis, Author
- Media Type
- Text
- Item Type
- Articles
- Description
- This is a handwritten biography of Henry Zimmerman from the Ellis Little Papers. This biography has been transcribed exactly as written. Ellis Little was a local historian, who was the principal of Elizabeth Ziegler Public School. On his retirement, he invested much of his time in researching and writing about Waterloo's history. The Ellis Little Papers consist of extensive notes, papers and historical works.
- Notes
- Please scroll to the bottom of the page to see the transcribed text. To see the original document, please visit the Ellis Little Local History Room at the Main Branch of the Waterloo Public Library.
- Date Of Event
- 1837-1898
- Subject(s)
- Personal Name(s)
- Zimmerman, Henry ; Brodright, Catherine ; Zimmerman, Catherine ; Bowman, Henry ; Lewis, Mark
- Corporate Name(s)
- Zimmerman House
- Local identifier
- ELP 51.247
- Collection
- Ellis Little Papers: Men and Women of Our Past
- Language of Item
- English
- Copyright Statement
- To obtain a copy of this item and for terms of use please contact the Waterloo Public Library.
- Location of Original
- Ellis Little Papers
- Contact
- Waterloo Public LibraryEmail:askus@wpl.ca
Website:
Agency street/mail address:35 Albert Street, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 5E2
- Full Text
