Visiting Us
5 Main Street South (now LuLu's Tavern)
The site at the south-west corner of Main Street and Lansdowne, the original four corners of Callander, has been the Callander Hotel since the early days. It was originally two storeys high with ‘two windows’. In the 1930s, it grew to ‘three windows’ wide, but still two storeys, and was owned by Lydia and Ira Dobbs, who also owned the Sunbeam Bungalows. As Callander grew in popularity as a tourist destination, especially with the Dionne quintuplet sisters, it grew to three storeys high.
The first Callander public school was in a lean-to shed beside the hotel from April to December 1886, before a new school was built by the current M.T. Davidson School on Lansdowne. The school was replaced by Fowler’s Grocer. The Fowler Grocery disappeared as the Callander Hotel expanded.