Qualla: Hotel de Ville, Cherbourg

Hotel de Ville, Cherbourg: Introduction

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The flag came from a parachute. On 2 July 1944, six days after Cherbourg fell, Major General J. Lawton Collins climbed the steps of the Hotel de Ville and presented Mayor Paul Renault with a French tricolour his soldiers had sewn together from American parachute silk. The German colors had been hauled down. The flagpole on the building's roof needed something to fly. So American paratroopers had spread out their canopies, sorted them by color, and cut a flag.

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Hotel de Ville, Cherbourg: From Basilica to Council Chamber

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andreas F. Borchert, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cherbourg's aldermen used to meet in the Basilique Sainte-Trinite, the Holy Trinity basilica, until they moved into the Chateau de Cherbourg in 1590. The castle did not last. In 1688 Louvois, the war minister of Louis XIV, ordered it demolished, and the city's elected men spent t...

Image: Andreas F. Borchert | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hotel de Ville, Cherbourg: The Empress's Room

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thilver, CC BY-SA 4.0. Joseph Cachin's twenty-five-foot granite obelisk went up in front of the building in 1817, commissioned by Mayor Nicolas Collart to commemorate the return of Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, who had landed at Cherbourg aboard the British frigate Eurotas in April 1814. The town h...

Image: Thilver | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hotel de Ville, Cherbourg: The First American In

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. On the morning of 26 June 1944, the day Cherbourg surrendered, Sergeant William Finley of the US 9th Infantry Division became the first Allied soldier to reach the town hall. He was killed in subsequent fighting in the city, in the last days of resistance from Fort du Roule and t...

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

Hotel de Ville, Cherbourg: What the Concrete Hid

Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Thbz, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1951 a police station inside the building closed, and the city took the opportunity to modernize the facade. The original stone front got concrete cladding. The casement windows that had looked onto Place de la Republique since 1804 were replaced. It was the kind of decision t...

Image: User:Thbz | CC BY-SA 3.0