Blue Note Cafe
(Former Dominion Hotel)
218-224 Main Street

Elias Swayze (Swaze) commenced the erection of the Dominion Hotel late in 1872. It was thought that the Post Office would be located nearby, drawing people into the area. Thus, the placement of government building played a major role in the decision of the owners as to the location of their buildings.

Disaster struck in May of 1877 when a fire destroyed the Dominion Hotel. Mr. Swayze did not have insurance and his business floundered. As there was a shortage of hotels in the area, a new Dominion Hotel was built in the summer of 1877. It was two and a half stories high of wood frame construction with a prominent boom-town front. Josaph Kahler operated the new hotel which functioned until 1884, after which it functioned briefly as the Dominion Club under W. R. Strachan. The hotel was then reverted back to hotel uses under J. K. Paisley, formerly of the Paisley House Hotel. Over subsequent years, the hotel was converted into a boarding house. In 1901, the Montgomery Brothers purchased the Dominion Hotel. By the mid-1920s, the old Dominion had deteriorated into a second hand store, with a shoemaker and barber still occupying their shops.

Numerous structural changes have occurred to the Dominion Hotel, but it has survived. Currently, it remains the Blue Note Cafe, a popular local nightspot.