More Fort William and Port Arthur Then's and Now's.......

Here we have 'The Home of Burney's Taxi".  Does anyone remember where it was?  It was at 111 N. Brodie Street and now there is no such address.  The two pictures following this one are almost self explanatory.  Wow, talk about "urban renewal", and how fast it all happens.  I hate that statement, because in our case here at the Lakehead it meant intercity improvements and downtown deterioration.  Let's hope things will get better in the future with all the goings on downtown Fort William.

Be sure to click on these pictures to compare from the 1950's one to 2009 where you can still see the YMCA building and the Twin City Gas building and most of the Victoriaville parking area, and finally to the present day.

This picture was taken yesterday from the same spot as the two others above and shows the progress at the new Court House.

NEXT is a series of West Fort William photos, some of which have been on this blog before.  It is the Dowswell Sheet Metal Co. building on the corner of Brock and Ford Streets in Westfort William.  The building still exists to this day as the "MASH Sewing Centre"

This became a famous corner in the mid 1940's as the place where a city rail trolly actually rolled over onto its side to the chagrin of passengers and the fellow standing on the balcony there!

These are photos of original street car signs that adorned the panels above the windows inside our rail streetcars from the 1920's to the 1940's.  This type of advertising is still used to some extent today on city buses.  Click on them to see the detail.

The next item on this post is another Westfort William building.  The 1913 photo was in a local advertising brochure naming the two lakehead cities of Fort William and Port Arthur as THE destination for major business ventures in the centre of Canada.  This is the "Donald Block" on the corner of Frederica and Brown Sts. in Westfort William and was the hub of 1913 financial doings in that part of town for the Royal Bank of Canada.

 The NOW picture here is the same building and today almost 100 years later is still standing as the well known Schwartz Men's Wear store.

Finally in this post we jump to Port Arthur, to a 1948 photo of Nicholson's Tire and Battery Service which was on the corner of Bay and Machar Sts. The smaller photos show how the interior looked back then, and the old time ad(Nicholson's Tire Surgery) was copied from a 1933 local hockey sports book.  Check out the old short phone numbers.

Here's how the building looked two years ago, as Bay Motors.  It was also the Goodyear Tire Centre before that for a number of years.

Thanks again to all who donate or loan photos to us at Hot Rods and Jalopies.  All we ask here is that any photos used from here are given publication credit to this blog page.  We also welcome comments at any time and corrections if you feel they are needed. 

Always be sure to click on all the pictures once and sometimes twice to see them in a larger format!

Thanks for looking....Dave