I had no idea this building was so old, let alone so beautiful in its prime. I’d love to bring it back to it’s former glory someday.

The story of the Jackson Building is both fabled and fraught. Its history has been buffeted by great events - both World Wars, a man-made disaster, the Roaring Twenties, the birth of Canada’s radio broadcasting, and the vagaries of Federal Government accommodation. The Jackson has now slipped back into obscurity. Hard to believe that what is today an anonymous brick block was once one of Ottawa’s best-known addresses. And, that there are still a few stories to be told. This post is replete with lengthy extracts from the overheated advertising copy-writers of the 1920s and 30s, which will have to suffice until photographs of the Jackson’s more exciting features are uncovered.