Like other industrial towns of Quebec, Shawinigan used to be ruled by an anglophone elite on Rue des Érables. The land was owned by the Shawinigan Water and Power Company and the town was centrally planned as company land. The Olmstead Brothers Agency planted the trees in Shawinigan in the 1920s, just as they did for Mount Royal in Montreal and Central Park in New York.
The town hall was built in the 1930’s with a distinct Art Deco feel to it. The St. Pierre Church is under the diocese of Trois-Rivières and occupies the top of the upper part of town and can be seen from all parts of town. I found another church in the lower part of town but couldn’t find its name – this is what happens when you do tourism off-the-beaten-path and don’t speak the local language.
St. Pierre Church 
Other church
The town used to have a thriving manufacturing and chemicals industry that occupied a third of the land area. It had the best wages in Quebec with an average monthly salary of more than $320 by the end of the 1950s. Cotton, calcium carbide, aluminium, alkalis, paper, and a power plant to supply electricity to these industries all thrived until the 1960s.
City hall 
Abandoned factory
Today, the town is shrinking. The aluminium plant closed in 1945, the paper mill is no more as digital media thrived, and the electrochemical plants will leave town soon. The rump of its manufacturing industry can be seen with its abandoned factories and stories told through La Cité d’Energie, which also has a gallery on the administration of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, a Shawiniganian.
