{"id":23432,"date":"2019-04-04T19:29:50","date_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:29:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23432"},"modified":"2019-04-04T19:29:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-04T23:29:59","slug":"time-travellers-diary-lodging-with-the-lemons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/time-travellers-diary-lodging-with-the-lemons\/","title":{"rendered":"TIME TRAVELLER’S DIARY: Lodging with the Lemons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Michelle Johnson
Aurora Museum & Archives<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1868, the\nsoutheast corner of Yonge and Mosley Streets became home to the Royal Hotel,\naffectionately known as Lemon\u2019s Hotel after the innkeeper, George Lemon\n(1842-1923). Lemon was born in Markham and started his career as an innkeeper\nin Richmond Hill, before moving to Aurora where he operated the Royal Hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1867, he married\nSophia Meek and together they had four daughters.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lemon\u2019s Hotel went\nthrough many transformations and during the early years, a tin shop stood\ndirectly beside it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1872, the tin shop\nwas destroyed by fire along with the hotel\u2019s stables and shed.  That would not be the only time that smoke\npoured from the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1877, another fire\nseverely damaged the hotel, but remarkably, Mr. Lemon was able to re-open it\nonly three months later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1888, the hotel\nwas extensively enlarged and a three-storey addition was constructed behind the\nmain building, which dramatically increased its size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the\nconstruction of community centres, the Royal Hotel provided an important space\nfor the community to organize. Residents would visit the hotel for club\nmeetings, celebrations and to conduct business transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stables of the\nhotel also acted as a venue for horse breeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, in June\nof 1905, a registered trotting stallion, named The Duke 25375, stopped in at\nthe Royal Hotel for two nights after traveling through Ballantrae, Udora,\nPefferlaw, Sutton, Keswick and Newmarket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Duke was\nadvertised as weighing 1,300 pounds with a race record of 2.29 and clients were\nguaranteed a quality colt or their bill would be waived. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 1880s and\n1890s, the local lacrosse, hockey, baseball and football associations often\nheld their annual meetings at Lemon\u2019s Hotel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victory celebrations\ntook place in the dining room, including one in 1902, after a friendly game of\ncurling between the Aurora and Newmarket clubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wager was an\noyster dinner, which the Aurora club was treated to \u2013 on Newmarket\u2019s tab, of\ncourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1911, George Lemon\nsold the Royal Hotel to Mr. Fred D. O\u2019Leary who operated it for another 16\nyears under the name, The Club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1927, the local paper lamented its\ndemolition: \u201canother old land mark on Yonge Street in this municipality is\ndisappearing with the tearing down of the Club Hotel, formerly the old Royal\nHotel\u201d (Aurora Banner,  July 15 1927). In\nits place, Aurora gained Cousins Dairy and Bell telecommunication offices.<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michelle JohnsonAurora Museum & Archives In 1868, the southeast corner of Yonge and Mosley Streets became home to the Royal Hotel, affectionately known as Lemon\u2019s Hotel after the innkeeper, George Lemon (1842-1923). Lemon was born in Markham and started his career as an innkeeper in Richmond Hill, before moving to Aurora where he operated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-65W","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-16 12:48:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}