Mayor Chatelle pictured with the firefighters
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Louis-Auguste Chatelle, an ambitious mayor

Louis-Auguste Chatelle, Mayor of LaSalle, Secretary of the Lake St Louis Bridge Corporation was born on June 12, 1871 in Saint-Isidore-de-Prescott, Ontario. Louis-Auguste was the son of Olivier Chatelle and Philomène Quenneville. He married Exilda Lalonde in October 1896. Then in July 1923, he married Marie-Anna Aubry, a teacher in Longue-Pointe. In 1921, he bought a summer cottage in LaSalle, before becoming a resident three years later. 

 

Elected Mayor of LaSalle in 1925 for a two-year term, which was renewed until 1935, he became one of the first church warden's of the new Parish of Notre-Dame-du-Sacré-Cœur, built in 1927.

Then in 1928, the Québec government launched the idea of building a bridge connecting the island of Montréal to the South Shore. To do so, he created the Lake St Louis Bridge Corporation, which would oversee its construction in the vicinity of Kahnawake, and L. A. Chatelle would serve as Secretary of the company's Board of Directors.

In 1935, after Mr. Chatelle's tenth year as Mayor of LaSalle, the voters opted for his opponent, Notary Armand Brosseau. During construction of the Honoré-Mercier bridge, the residents had criticized him for the low percentage of LaSalle workers at the worksite. He had publicly stated that as the work on the bridge was extremely dangerous, it would be preferable, for local workers, not to be part of the worksite team. The voters hadn't really appreciated his comments in the middle of an economic crisis.