More Then and Nows to ponder here in Fort William and Port Arthur.....

Here a few more great photos from then and now in Port Arthur, Ontario(now Thunder Bay).  Red River Road near the water front in Port Arthur was originally called Arthur Street, but had to be changed due to the amalgamation of Fort William and Port Arthur into Thunder Bay in 1970.

Same spot taken in 2009

Photo is taken just west of Court Street on Red River Road

NW Corner of Court and RR Road taken 2009

Taken on the North West corner of Red River Road and Court.

Court & Red River Road a little closer to the lake early part of the Century

Photo taken in the same spot as above

Taylor's Men's Wear photo taken in the late 1940's.  The OLG Casino would be
just to the left of this photo as seen in the today photo below.

This is the same building as above....you can see the casino behind it.

This is the Tomlinson Block.  It is situated directly across from the Prince Arthur Hotel on the water front in Port Arthur Ontario.  This was an early 1950's photo, showing a Simpsons Sears mail order depot, and a variety of other business long gone and changed as noted in the today photo shown next.

Here Thunder Bay Insurance Services occupy the same spot that Simpsons Sears did in the 1950's.  This photo was taken in 2009, thanks to Google Images.

Continuing on with the Tomlinson block....this photo was taken in the 1920's and a little further south down the street and faces the W.T. McEachern Drug store on the north west corner of Cumberland street and Red River Road.  You can see the public utilities building a little further down Cumberland street in the distance.  A little known fact was that the F. W. Woolworth store was originally located this far down Arthur Street(Red River Road).

A little more recognizable on this same corner is the Burke Jewelry store and just left of it, Bryans.  Bryans also had a store on Victoria Ave in Fort William.  This photo was taken in the early 1950's.  St James Music Store just to the left of Bryans was a mainstay at this location right into the 1970's and beyond in a different location.  It was called St. James Stereo.

A great aerial shot taken likely from the roof of the News Chronicle building in the 1950's around the same time as the photo above was taken.  You are facing west and up Arthur Street(Red River Road).  To the right are the fire escapes from the Prince Arthur Hotel, and also in the photo is a Brill Bus vividly painted in the Port Arthur colours of burgundy and cream.

Th final shot here is how the corner looks today.....not very glamorous at all!

It is sometimes difficult to come to terms with how our city looks today.  A lot of the old buildings are long gone and all the cars look like clones.  Back then, you could tell what make a car was from two or three blocks away.  It would be nice to think that our siblings and grand-kids could remember how it was by viewing some of the vintage photos shown in this blog site.  My own 11 year old grand-daughter is very interested in our city's history and said that she would like to help preserve some of our past........  "Progress is wonderful...but not at a loss of our past".

Be sure to click on the photos to enlarge them...Thanks

KIISKILA'S SERVICE GARAGE in Port Arthur and other miscellaneous items.....

Here is a 1936 Calendar from Kiiskila's original location in Port Arthur Ontario. In the 1930's it was located on the corner of Bay and Algoma Street. The present location is shown in the small photo here.

Kiiskila's was also a distributor for their own "Molly Oil" which was well known in the area at that time. The address shown on the bottle was John Street and Empire(Empire was changed to Empress Street when Fort William and Port Arthur amalgamated). The building in the present day photo still exists on the same property. This was the last location of Kiiskila's Service. My step-mom's dad Werner Tapio, ran this station for quite some time in the 1940's and 1950's.

 

Below is an old ad from 1932 for a tire pressure gauge made by Schrader.....and in the picture to the right is the same unusual piece from my own collection with some old tire/tube valves.

 

Here is an old ad from about 1934 showing a Prestone Antifreeze can and reminding us all to get our cars ready for the winter months here in the North. Prestone and the Eveready Battery people were together at that time, later to branch out on their own, as shown on the cans in my collection here.

Below are a couple of different anti-freeze ads from the 1930's and it looks as thought the "Afflack" duck was taken from that ad.

One final part to this post is actually from a current issue of Reminisce Magazine which is a great bi-monthly publication for us nostalgia freaks. Dennis Adler has a cool little cartooney item in each publication and this one reminds us of some of the teenage antics from the 1950's.

 DO YOU REMEMBER??

Be sure to click on each photo once or twice to read them clearly.

Thanks for watching HR&J..........Dave.

LEST WE FORGET, Remembrance Day 2011 - 20 photos of then and now here in Fort William and Port Arthur.....

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

The picture to the right is taken on the corner of Red River Road(formerly Arthur Street before amalgamation), and Cumberland Street facing north.  A little faded out but on the right is the Prince Arthur Hotel.  This picture was taken on VJ day (Victory in Japan day) in 1945 during the ticker tape parade.

This photo was taken about 1918 welcoming home WWI soldiers to Fort William Ontario.  This picture was taken on the corner of Victoria Ave and May Street facing west. 

This is how the corner looked in 2009....the changes are incredible but there are still 2 rows of 7 windows across the upper floors of the Scotia Bank building.

This is a 1917 photo of the 141st Battalion coming down Simpson Street heading south/west around the corner onto Victoria Ave. 

This corner as it looked in 2009 on Google images barely looks like the same spot, as most all the historic structures on Simpson St have burned to the ground in recent years.

This is a photo of the arrival back in Port Arthur of the 52nd Battalion on March 29, 1919, only 5 months before my father was born.  The battery of soldiers are moving off on parade.  This old Port Arthur CPR station would be right in the middle of what is now Water Street just east of the Prince Arthur Hotel.

The Next few photos are taken on Oct 10th 1940.  Local soldiers of the 52nd Battalion are marching down Red River Road to the CPR station where they will head by train to the east coast and then overseas.

This is how this corner looked in 2009 on Google images.

The Pagota in this picture as you can see was moved west up the hill somewhat towards the Prince Arthur Hotel.  Water street was quite narrow and the time and was west of the old CPR station as shown in the older photo.  This old station would actually be right in the centre of the present day Water Street.

This is a 1940 Colour Guard parade on the corner of Victoria Ave and Brodie Street in Fort William showing soldiers heading off to war.  Thank you to Roger Rickards for this great photo.  All the old Victoria Ave landmarks are clearly visible in this photo.

This is how the same spot looked in 2009 on Google Images.  It's nice to see most of these Victoria Ave building are still in use today.

 Canada Car and Foundary(CC&F) built 1,441 Hurricanes and Sea Hurricanes during the war effort.

This is how the inside of the Fort William plant looked in 1944.  My father was stationed on the west coast near Victoria BC after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour.  There was concern that there would be more bombings of naval bases in the US and in Canada in the early 1940's.  My parents were married just before my Dad was sent to Victoria and I would be born there when this photo was taken in 1944.

Thanks to all those who donated or loaned photos for this and many other posts.  Be sure to click on all the photos for enlargement and also go to this link to see more photos from last years Remembrance Day post http://hotrodsandjalopies.blogspot.com/2010/11/lest-we-forgetremembrance-day-november.html