McGibbon Hotel 

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Submitted by George Marko 

The hotel, situated in the heart of the village’s business district at 79 Main Street South, always attracted ‘travellers’ (or sales representatives). First-class stable accommodation was to be found at the rear of the building. A complex of buildings associated with the hotel included an ice house which stored ice cut from the old Barber pond and, later from Lawson’s Pond in Stewarttown. Fresh eggs and milk arrived daily at the hotel from a farm which Sam McGibbon owned on the southern fringes of Stewarttown. Several shops once occupied the front of the hotel and a barbershop located on the Mill Street side of the hotel, on a basement level, was reputed to be a favourite gambling spot. When prohibition was legislated many hotelkeepers ‘bootlegged’, but not Sam McGibbon. McGibbon didn’t maintain his standard hotel license during the prohibition years…. Sam’s wife, Ann, kept white linen in the dining room and the table supplied “with an abundance of food – the best the market affords – which is well cooked and neatly served.” The hotel in its earliest years had been a popular location for fashionable wedding receptions and banquets. The McGibbon family lived at the hotel. A table was maintained for the family in the main dining room and large living quarters were kept on the second floor…. The McGibbon family took great pride in the hotel business they had established over the years. When Sam died August 20, 1940 only a few months after his wife’s death, a daughter, Gladys and a son, Jack, took over the business until 1962. The business was then sold to Isaac Switzer Investments of Toronto and in 1967 – almost 100 years after Thomas Clark had purchased the hotel – Gladbar Hotels Limited of Toronto took possession. George and Nick Markou purchased the hotel December 1978. The business however retains the McGibbon name which has been connected with the hotel and downtown business community since 1895. 
The McGibbon was sold to SiverCreek group developers in 2015, those plans fell through and it was sold again to Amico corporation in 2018. The Building as of 2024 has been demolished and will be rebuilt into condos.