After exhausting the CIL plant in Chatham, there was one last weekend before I had to return to the wintry east. Four of us piled into Steve's whip and headed up to Wallaceburg, where I'd researched and thought there was enough to see to make an afternoon out of it.

Our first stop was the Kent Tavern.

The major center between Chatham & Sarnia, factories and recreation were two major factors that brought a lot of people to Wallaceburg. The early businessmen and boaters needed hotels and these hotels also had taverns for the blue-collar factory workers.

The main downtown strip of James Street was home to the fancier options, while there was also the South Side's Wallace Street where you had the Hotel Dupont (later the Wallaceburg Inn), Hotel Mirlin (which was once a wartime hostel for working women), the Arlington Hotel and the Montreal House.

The Wallaceburg Inn is long gone, but a few parcels down the street from its vacant lot is the location of the old Montreal House. Frank Mann's A History of Wallaceburg and Vicinity 1804 to the Present states that the Montreal House was 3 stories tall and "part of it still remains as the Kent House."

Looking at StreetView and judging the colour difference and varied roofline; as well as the location of failing brick, I'd guess that the far west (left in the above picture) piece would be from the old Montreal House.

I can't find anything that references when this building was built outward from the Montreal House. I only know that it was pre-1939 because 1984's Settlement on the Sydenham says that the Kent Hotel had been owned by the same family since 1939.

Sometime after 1984 it became the Kent Tavern and around that time nude dancers were introduced. Facebook comments remark on how there used to be a hairstyling place upstairs in the 80s or 90s, but some people left once the strippers were introduced at the tavern (while some others commented about how you'd sometimes run into strippers while getting your hair done).

(One other guy commented in multiple places about seeing a topless classic rock female trio who played at the new Kent Tavern. It seems the performance really stuck with him.)

I'm burying the lede here though, because of course I would explore an old tavern in the Essex/Kent/Lampton County area, but I would especially go out of my way for the last old strip club of a smallish center like Wallaceburg.

I already know your first question and no, I didn't explore this place when it was open. I actually didn't even know it existed, until I saw someone's abandoned building photos of it a few years ago.

The question becomes would JC, Carrico, McClounie and I have come here in 2000 when we drove to Wallaceburg to watch Roach play at the Wallaceburg Memorial Arena against the Lakers? I now wish we would have for the sake of this update!

The Kent House's front windows were long ago blocked up with stone during the transformation into the Kent Tavern, so we entered into a pitch-black area where our flashlights found a wood-panelled bar straight out of the 70s, a drywall and pigeon shit-covered pool table sinking into the floor, and unbelievably, the stage and pole still in place.

As it turns out, my pole dancing skills have diminished considerably since back in the day when I used to go to that university house with the stripper pole. Steve wasn't doing much better & it's at this point that Donnie brought up the fact that he thought we were trying to spin around a roof support beam and not a stripper pole. I contemplated this and thought about the pole's girth, thinking maybe Donnie was right.

Maybe I can't check off "abandoned strip club with the pole still installed" just yet.

Wandering upstairs, we found enough turns and weird spaces to make for a confusing layout.

It was getting late now & even though the upstairs isn't boarded up, the rooms were still too dark to take handheld pictures - although that obviously didn't stop me from taking flash pictures of this ancient, painted-over skylight.

Why would you paint over a skylight when all of the rooms had windows anyway?

I really regret, and also can't believe, that I didn't take a picture of any of the rooms, especially the one with the fancy bathtub/pseudo-jacuzzi. This jacuzzi room was on the front of the building, where the rooms were divided into decent-sized, multi-room apartments. The entire backside of the building was simple 1-room bedrooms with barely enough space for a twin-sized bed and an end table.

I have a friend who told me about how his sister stripped here, which was interesting in picturing her staying out here in one of these rooms before heading home in the morning.

It also lead to contemplating the scary situation that could have been possible here, where you have an 18-year-old (or possibly younger) girl driving in from whatever small town by herself, staying here with who knows what drugs or alcohol that the other strippers might've brought, while also around sketchy and/or predatory dudes that might've been brought along. Then again, maybe that's safer than nowadays where if you were from out of town, you could be staying at some random's house where there would be no supervision or authority at all?

I have no idea about the policies or security of the Kent Tavern though, it's just that I'm used to modern-day strip clubs where there aren't accommodations on site. It's only in walking these halls and seeing how close and small these rooms were, that I thought about how sketchy this situation could be.

Driving around earlier, the main street of Wallaceburg seemed to be doing fine with some new-age restaurants opening up just like everywhere else, but the town as a whole is definitely not on the same upswing. The number of jobs lost, subsequent out-migration of people and new big box stores have left a lot of vacant buildings and storefronts.

Where downtown's James Street seems to be doing alright, the South Side was visibly struggling. If you were to come along and try to get the modern-day, city-living revival going here on Wallace Street, you could buy the Kent Tavern - it used to be listed for sale - but there are easier, better options that are also vacant and available. This would be the first step towards getting rid of some of the boarded-up windows that have appeared between 2009 StreetView and 2013 StreetView. As it stands though, years continue to pass with Wallace Street in a deep slumber.

After the Kent Tavern we checked out the H&B Hockey Stick factory, which was industrial, sprawling and awesome, but it was so dark inside that I didn't take any pictures. Of course it then suffered a spectacular fire in December of 2017, so now I guess I'll never get pictures of it.

Following this fine afternoon and now evening, I knew what we had to eat to celebrate... especially since I didn't think anyone else knew about the odd dining option here.

Wallaceburg's weird Taco Bell in a convenience store!

I was pretty damn amused to point us in the direction of Walpole Island, then quickly point out the Taco Bell up on our right. Donnie was right confused with pulling up to a convenience store, wondering where the separation is from the Taco Bell...but there isn't one! Wu-ha!

Anyway, from icepicking the 3-stair yellow handrail behind D.A. Gordon School in 1998, to Roach's hockey game in 2000, to this explore of the old Kent House in 2017 - good times in Wallaceburg as always.