THIS Fort William & Port Arthur Ontario, now Thunder Bay's FIRST History Blog/Web Page Celebrates 10 Years of History and Over 1 Million Views

I am incredibly grateful for everyone's support over the past 10 years, as without the many readers of the Hotrods and Jalopies blog pages, I would have likely never continued with it.

HR&J is also posting history on the Dave Cano Facebook page as well as The Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Memories Facebook page.  In the beginning it was a little overwhelming and when I took on my personal Facebook page and the group page CLE memories, it has become almost a daily task to keep things up.

I also receive many photos, news clippings and ideas locally and from former residents of Fort William and Port Arthur/Thunder Bay, and I sometimes have difficulty keeping it all in some order.  I plan to carry on as long as I can, and my hopes are that by preserving our history this way, it will continue on long after I cannot.  I get letters from as far away as New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Los Angeles California, and eastern and western Canada, saying how much they like the blog.  Some people think it's only about cars and racing but as most of you know, it is a mixture of local history and racing.  On the Internet the blog comes up as Hotrods and Jalopies, but on the home page I added a few words to remind people that it's also about local history, therefore reading "The Hotrods and Jalopies Generation" which covers it all.
Many thanks also to Gary Spence and Richard Mark for continuing with the local history on Facebook in their own special way.  We also exchange photos and information continually.
Many thanks to all the contributors of photos, stories and memories.  Also many thanks to my friend Al Yahn for being my proof reader for 10 years, and to my family for their patience.

Today I am posting 25 of my favourite then and now city history photos....no racing in this bunch.  Some of the "now" ones have become "then's" already...that's how fast our history progresses.  I am not adding any writing to them or hints as to what and where they are.  See if you can remember.
In addition I am adding one personal favourite of myself(sorry for that) which will start off the posts.
Finally...be sure to click on each and every one for a full screen enlargement, then come back.

THANK YOU FOR WATCHING FOR 10 YEARS......

CLE Championship Racing 1958 - New and never seen before racing photos from our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur.....

I'm always on the hunt for new photos that have never been posted here, and as time goes on, there are fewer and fewer.  This past August I was given a little album of photos by old friend Bernard (Bernie) Malanych.  They were taken by him on September 12th and 13th of 1958 at the International Dirt Track Stock Car Championships here in Fort William at the Lakehead Exhibition Race Track.  The photos that were taken by Bernie will still have the white border and were about 3 1/2 inches square taken by his typical Brownie Camera in the day.  The rest of the photos and programs are from my own archive of CLE racing photos.
So, we start off here by showing you the title page of the program and the center page with the roster of drivers many of which you will surely remember if you were a kid in 1958.

This is what the outside of the little album of photos looks like and again if you were around at that time you will remember.

There are some smudges on the photos, but that kind of adds to their authenticity from the day.  This one of the cars coming down the main stretch in front of the old Grandstand, with the judges stand across all in white.  I added a little cutout from the photo below it.

Here's a picture of Jerry MacDonald's car in front of the grandstand.  You can read Jerry's data from the clipping below the picture.  Those little cameras took great photos in the day.  We were restricted to 8 or usually 12 photos on the film, not like unlimited digital is today, and you never knew if your photos turned out until you had them developed and returned in about a week.

Next we have three photos of the little cut down car...the beginning of what was to come in racing around the country and into the mid west USA, driven by Fred Coleman from Winnipeg, Man., with a little write up below the photos

This is a photo from my own archives

So much could be said about our own Barry Kettering.  There are many pages, write-ups and photos of Barry on the Hotrods and Jalopies generation blog pages....I will add a link to more stuff on Barry.  Incidentally Barry had already became the 1958 track Champion as seen on the newspaper clipping advertising this event. 

Here's a link to a plethora of Barry Kettering photos etc. that are on this site...wait 'til you've read this complete post then come back to this link, click on it scroll down as far as you want.
https://hotrodsandjalopies.blogspot.com/search?q=Barry+Kettering



Here's a guy that frequented the CLE racetrack and Riverview Raceway throughout the years, Bud (Buddy) Mayala from Clear Lake Wisconsin...a nice little write-up follows this photo as well.

Another all time favorite and racing legend #519 Russ Laursen also frequented the local Canadian Lakehead Exhibition racetrack until his untimely death in a racing accident back in 1970.  These guys came here to add to the action and were never disappointing......how I miss those days.

Russ Laursen holding the trophy from this 1958 event....this is a great photo thanks again to Bernie.

Dean Harrington...Mister U2 and WJMC Radio sponsored was another fan favorite that came up to Fort William many times in the day, and spent over 60 years involved in racing, particularly in the Rice Lake, Wisconsin area.

I am posting Bernie's last photo, just because it was the last photo in the little album, but I'm not too sure who's car it was....look close....are you in this photo.
Thanks again to Bernie Malanych for the donation of your photo album to the Hotrods and Jalopies generation blog pages.  Much appreciated.
PS...A big apology Bernie, I spelled your last name incorrectly on the photo water marks, and can't change it now....😇 Sorry.