Established to assist the war effort by supplying small-arms ammunition to British forces, the Montreal Works was one of several similar factories run by DIL in the metropolitan area. There were facilities in Verdun, Beloeil and Sainte-Thérèse, and another in Villeray at the corner of Boulevard Saint-Laurent and Rue de Liège, not far from the Montreal Works. Of these munitions plants, only the Verdun facility and the Montreal Works survive today (the Verdun factory had originally been built for the First World War, and was converted in the early 1940s).

At the end of the war, the complex was taken over by Crown Industrial Building. By 1946, it had been converted into 22 separate spaces, for all manner of industrial production including chemicals, plastic and textiles. The building is in many ways a witness to the industrial evolution of this Montreal district.

The area around Rue Chabanel eventually became a prime site for a booming industry: textile production. As a result, in the early 1970s the former Montreal Works began to be literally surrounded on all sides by newly constructed concrete buildings. From that moment, 9500 Boulevard Saint-Laurent disappeared from collective memory. Today, its façade on Boulevard Saint-Laurent is visible only through a narrow space between two of those more recent buildings.

With the growth of the Chabanel textile district, the former Montreal Works munitions factory, the very first building in the area, has been largely forgotten. But its surviving original architectural features, including the façade, help make it a significant reminder of Montreal’s role in the war effort.