Ralph Darling's Service Station 1954 and it's Significance at 906 Victoria Ave in our home town of Fort William, Ontario....

Looking back through photos and documents in my archives I had some photos that mentioned Darling's Service and I knew where it was located but the best help was in finding this photo clipping of Darling's Service Station's Grand Opening from a local Facebook page (Sorry I don't recall whose...but thank you).  The address at 906 Victoria Ave. has had a plethora of service stations including the most important in my life span as Ray Charles Texaco owned and operated by old friends Ray Defoy and Charlie Miller.  But on to this May 22, 1954 clipping that someone saved from our Fort William Times Journal.  Those years were extremely significant due to the resurgence of organized Stock Car Racing the year before in 1953 by the Lakehead Stock Car Club.

Mayor Gordon Carson was the Fort William Mayor of the day, and here we see him cutting the ribbon with Ralph Darling and staff for the grand opening with the old Pilkington Glass building in the background. 

Here is a clipping cut from the main one showing the expertise of the lessee and his staff all under the Texaco Sign.  “You can trust your car to the man who wears the star, the big bright Texaco star.” ....remember that one?

Ok now...It's important to know a few things here, Ralph Darling ran the service station for the owner Bud Heidrick.  Bud personally sponsored Barry Kettering's first and many stock car jalopies with the number 47 on the side, hence the words "Bud's Thing" on all the #47 cars that Barry drove.  When Barry changed his colour combination to red and white and his number to #57 in 1957, was when Norm Hogan (noted here as a member of the staff) took over the 47 number, then no longer sponsored by Bud.  Hope this makes sense...and the story continues.
Click all pictures to enlarge.




Below is one of or possibly the first Barry Kettering piloted "Bud's Thing" #47 with an unknown person at the front.  If you know who this person is, let me know.  The tall building in the background is Chapples Ltd and you can read Hurtig Furs on the sign just across Victoria Ave.  This is the present day corner of McKellar St. and Victoria Ave.  The original name of McKellar St. was John St. which was changed after the amalgamation to Thunder Bay in 1970.  The similar photo directly below this is one with the one and only "Bud" Heidrick, and as mentioned, the owner of Darling's Service and the sponsor/owner of the #47 car.

"Bud Heidrick" with his sponsored Barry Kettering car

Here's a fairly recent photo of the old Hurtig Furs building with the light green trim and the new courthouse being built behind the old Chapples building and sitting partially on the old YMCA property.

This photo of the "Bass Ackward" #47 was taken along what was John St. in the day, now McKellar with a number of old homes which were removed to build Centennial Plaza...this would be the rear portion of the stores originally with a bank building on the corner.  The photo to the right shows how the street looks today.

This one was also taken along McKellar St, with none other than Norm Hogan looking on to the right.  In 1957 Norm would then drive the famed #47 himself.  Also in the picture on the right behind Norm is the original Fort William Clinic....later to be rebuilt then after that moving in recent years near our new Regional Hospital.  Royal Triton Motor Oil was THE racing oil of the day...it was actually purple in colour and was actually endorsed in commercials by Marilyn Monroe.  There is much more about Marilyn and Royal Triton in another post here on Hotrods and Jalopies.

This is how the very spot looks today with the newer Fort William Clinic building in the background now I believe empty.  Most of the trees that decorate the above photo are long gone.

Here's one last photo of Norm Hogan sitting in Barry's car parked a little closer to Victoria Ave.  The old home in the background was replaced by the Bank Building on that corner.

The next phase of this story is the #10 car which was driven by Ross "Pappy" Fowler.  Here you can see it parked right in front of Darling's Service.  Pappy's #10 car was directly sponsored by Darling's Service, so both the #47 and the #10 cars resided here for a year or two.  Pappy drove the #10 car for a couple of years then also a #98 car.
Pappy would later quit racing and be the flagman for a few years as well.  When Pappy quit driving the #10 car, it would be taken over by Don Marsh who had tremendous success with his #10.

While looking at the pictures of Pappy's car here, you can see other landmarks such as Billboard row on the north/east corner of what was called John St. and Victoria Ave. with the YMCA in the background...of course now long gone to accommodate the court house downtown Fort William.  Be sure to click on all the photos big and small to get them screen size.

There have been many tenants in the old Safeway building that was on Victoria Ave., including Canadian Tire.

Here is the last photo of Pappy Fowler's #10 again on the original corner of Victoria and John St. in Fort William.  There was also a small grocery store called Star Fruit and Vegetable Market just a little down the street toward where Victoriaville is today and you can just make out the large Buckingham cigarette sign on the side of that building, and right on the corner a Mr. Bill Smith lived.  (Information from Henderson's Directory)

How Darling's looked from the front....

Darling's model "B" service truck with R "Pappy" Fowlers name.

How the property looks today....The building is the same structure.

Across the street is the old Safeway/Canadian Tire building...today photo

Next is an overview of the area to help you recognize the area as it looks today and what was there.

Finally a huge thank you to the people who took the marvelous photos so that we can spend time reminiscing about our past.......
.....“You can trust your car to the man who wears the Star, the big bright Texaco Star” It would be nice to have real "service" like we had in the day.    

As once mentioned, I don't do as many posts as I used to do, but they are much longer with more story content....hope you enjoyed this post.  thanks, Dave

UNIQUELY FORT WILLIAM, Ontario, Canada......more hot rods and jalopies later.....

I'm not in any way trying to snub Port Arthur-ites (you know...people from Port Arthur) with this post, however, as I lived in Fort William and rarely ventured over to Port Arthur until I had my own set of wheels, or unless I was swimming in Boulevard Lake with my parents, I spent a huge percentage of time in Fort William.  In this post I am trying a new idea in posting a number of collage photo groups which I have been working on for some time. I tried to find one of my posts that would represent the uniqueness of Fort William in it's heyday.  I chose this old HR&J post, re-entered here as it looked back in 2009.

To me Fort William had the best cruising strip anywhere, and it was duly taken away from us baby boomers when we needed it most....well, you get the idea.....

This next group shows the beauty and excitement of a Shriner's Parade on Miles Street in Fort William.  I can't recall where this photo originated but I am very grateful that it was taken...it brought back a ton of memories when it was a bustling down town district.  BE SURE TO CLICK ON ALL THE GROUPS OF PHOTOS ONCE THEN TWICE TO ENLARGE AND VIEW.  A big thank you to my friend Al Yahn for checking on addresses and places for me in his 1950's Henderson directory.

 

 I had done a blog post about Bourke's Drug store way back when, but I recently came across a very old Bourke's Drug envelope while looking through my own archives from the era before dial phones were here at the Lakehead (I love saying Lakehead).  Note, the phone number is 1400.....pick up your phone, wait for the operator, then say "South 1400 please", and she would plug you in to Bourke's.  That was "the" place where my parents purchased all their drug needs back then....read all the details an data on these collage photos.

Fryer Studio was pretty much where everyone would get their photo finishing done.  In the 1940's if you wanted a colour photo, you would have to get a studio to hand colour or hand paint one.  Jessop's Pharmacy on Simpson St. is where my grandparents purchased all their drug needs, as they lived close to Jessop's address.....In those days it was pretty safe to head down Simpson Street....even at night to your corner store or drug store or even go to the movies at the Lake Theatre.

A recent yard sale find is this incredible brochure.  Read all the data as it was a very special event here in Fort William when Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip came to open the St. Lawrence Seaway.  My great aunt Catherine Seppala was Mayor of Fort William at the time and as you can see by the seating arrangement at the bottom, she sat directly beside Queen Elizabeth.....Click twice to enlarge as stated above.

One of the most interesting finds this year was this Fort William travel brochure which I had never seen before.  The map and data about Fort William is below, and I kept it at a fairly large format so you could read about how we promoted our city back in the day....click twice to enlarge.

I found this Dominion Motors newspaper clipping showing the 1952 Pontiac and decided to show these photos again of Dominion Motors on May Street.

As stated on the next photo collage, I have never seen the full size card for this photo....so we have a photo drawing of the original "Fort" William.

These are the things I love to collect...little tidbits of advertising from our city.  There was a lot of it back in the day and it is getting more difficult to find.  Note the phone number is MA 2-6463.  MA stood for MAyfair and is actually 62 on the old dial phones.  DI - DIamond and MU - MUtual were also used.  The clipping below is from a 1961 Fort William phone book.

HR&J hope you enjoyed this post which to me is UNIQUELY Fort William, Ontario.

ALSO BE SURE TO CHECK OUT "THUNDER BAY MEMORIES" ON FB FOR MANY MORE PHOTOS OF OUR TWIN CITIES.

The Diamond Block in Fort William 110 North Street....History Lost!!

This is the Diamond Block on 110 North Street in Fort William Ontario(now Thunder Bay).  It was an historic site and of Architectural heritage until the wrecking ball destroyed it in January of this year.  The letter shown below from Robin Rickards to the editor of the Chronicle Journal on January 7, 2012 says it all......but there is more to the bricks that were pulled down...read more below!

Footnote:  The little sign above the door on the bottom right of the first photo reads "Chapples Annex".  That building was used as a small warehouse for the original Chapples Department Store(The Chapple's building also known as the Grain Exchange building still exists mostly withing the confines of the now "Victoriaville").  Be sure to click on all the pictures once or twice for enlargements.

If you look close at the south side of the building before it came down, you can read the words "Lyric Theatre" and further to the right of the picture you can read the word "Vaudeville"....the wording below that cannot be deciphered.  If anyone knows what it says, please email me, or write a comment.

 History has it that the Diamond block was once a thriving Vaudeville Theatre back near the beginning of the 20th century.  This picture states that "something" was only 10cents.  When I heard that the block was ready for demolition I searched back into my photos to find these pictures with the signage painted on the side of the building, and felt happy that at least this was preserved in photos.

This is how the block looked intact on the corner of North Street and Victoria Ave before the demolition.  The cars in the foreground are parked in the empty lot that was once the St. Louis Hotel.  I can't believe all the heritage buildings that have gone to the wrecking ball in the last few years.

The two pictures above are taken from a late 1940's Fort William Phone Book.  The businesses there were Goodfellow Outboard-Marine and the well known Diamond Taxi(hence Diamond Block).  Diamond Taxi still exists today as Lacey-Diamond Taxi and is situated in the old Kam Motors building on Leith Street here in Fort William. 

A Few More Then and Now`s in Fort William and Port Arthur, now Thunder Bay, Ontario.....

One of my favorite hangouts in my teen years and up was the Palace Confectionery, on the corner of Leith and Simpson St. This is where I purchased all my Hot Rod and Rod & Custom magazines and bought very cold Cokes out of a water filled Coca Cola Machine. Thanks to the Scalzo Collection this photo of the brill bus was taken in front of the Palace in about 1965. The building still exists today in the now run down Simpson Street area. Our city is still trying beautification tactics to keep Simpson Street alive. Some of the huge air-brushed art pieces there are great but it`s like flogging a dead horse to try to keep this area decent.


Thanks to our Sports Hall of Fame, I have this wonderful photo of the old Port Arthur Arena which was on the corner of Court and Camelot Streets, now home to the Safeway Store.
Port Arthur's first indoor rink was known as the Lake City Rink, which was constructed in the early part of the century on Cumberland Street near McVicar's Creek. In 1923 the Arena Rink was built on Court Street, financed and operated by a group of citizens from Port Arthur and Fort William, known as the Arena Rink Company, at a cost of $65,000. Destroyed in a spectacular fire in 1931 that rink was replaced in 1932 with a 4000 capacity arena constructed on North Court Street. Residents still recall the controversy surrounding the fact that it took many a wrecking ball to finally tear down this "condemned" building in 1959.
I remember as a kid taking the bus to Port Arthur and going roller skating there occasionally.

Above is a great(albeit fuzzy) black & white picture of the Cooper Block which was on the north-east corner of May St. and Victoria Ave. Cooper`s ladies wear was at the far right, then left of that was Wishart`s Fashion Craft men`s store, where I worked at my very first job. I worked an hour or two every day after school and all day Saturday for $5.00 a week, great money when you were 12 years old, making deliveries on my bike and cleaning display cases. On the corner was Whites Rexall Drugs and soda fountain. They made the best milk shakes and Cherry Cokes anywhere.
This building burned down in a spectacular fire shortly after Christmas in about 1971. At that time it was called Drug World. The colour pictures were taken after 1970 due to the words Thunder Bay Fire(not Fort William) on the side of the fire vehicles. Fort William and Port Arthur became Thunder Bay in 1970.
Researching our local directories, it was called Lord's Supervalue Pharmacy in 1970. In 1962 the main floor of this building was vacant. In 1959 it was called White's Drug Store. In 1947 it was called White's Rexall Drug Store. In 1944/45 it was just White's Drug Store, and in 1933 this address was called Mackenzie Telford Tobacconist. My friend Allan Yahn did the research for this(thanks Al).
The last 4 photos were added on Monday Oct. 19 and are courtesy of my friend Clarence Merko. You can see how cold it was and note the open cockpit ladder truck. These were obviously still used in the early '70's. The picture beside the black & white, shows the property today with H&R block on site.
POST SCRIPT! John said the the fire took place in January of 1973. Click on "comments" below and see how he remembered the year it burned!!!
Click on photos to enlarge!