In 1876, a local landowner, William Upton, noted in his diary that "The Ottawa Hunt" was active in his area. In 1907, The Ottawa Hunt Ltd. bought most of the Upton land. After the war ended, few here remained interested in British-style fox hunting, so the club switched first to motor expeditions, then to golf. Today, there are many other uses of the name in the area.
Gloucester Township Concession Road 5 Rideau Front, that ran along the south edge of the club lands, soon became known as the Hunt Club Road. At that time it ran from Riverside Drive (called Hogs Back Road in 1867, later the River Road) to Bank Street (then the Metcalfe Road). About 1970, the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton upgraded it to regional collector status and formalised the name Hunt Club Road. (The name may have been formalised earlier by the City of Ottawa or the Township of Gloucester.) The road to the west of the Rideau was named West Hunt Club Road to avoid having to renumber the original road, whose numbers began at the Rideau River and ran east; West Hunt Club Road numbers started at the River and ran west. Ca. 1990, the road was extended east to Hawthorne Road.
Today's Ottawa International Airport was first known, as early as 1919, as the Hunt Club Field.
The pre-amalgamation City of Ottawa defined 50 neighbourhoods, a Hunt Club East and Hunt Club West among them. The dividing line between them is the Canadian Pacific rail line. Statistics Canada used these for reporting the 2001 Census.
Ottawa Police Services defines about 340 neighbourhoods. They restrict the name Hunt Club to two areas within the City's Hunt Club West: Hunt Club Woods and the recently renamed Hunt Club Estate (still marked as Western Community on this map).
Over the years, developers have given various forms of the name to their subdivisions. Hunt Club Woods was named by Campeau, who developed the area south of Uplands Drive; Urbandale developed the portion north of Uplands. Hunt Club Chase was probably named by Campeau, but many builders were active there. Upper Hunt Club was named by Minto; Hunt Club Park by Richcraft. The City of Ottawa named Hunt Club Place.
About 20 local businesses use the name, including the Hunt Club Centre, a small shopping plaza.
The Hunt Club Community Organization represents the residents of the area bounded by the Rideau River, the CP Prescott spur (Ellwood Subdivision) rail line, the CN Ottawa Central (Beachburg Subdivision) rail line and the southern boundary of the pre-amalgamation City of Ottawa.
John Sankey
other notes on community matters
I thank Jack Marsala for the information on developers' names.