FORT WILLIAM AND PORT ARTHUR, ONTARIO....Then and Now in our home towns....

Sorry for the long delay in new postings on HR&J....we have had some blogger issues to deal with.

It's been quite a long time since we posted some then and now photos...and we are right on track with this new post, beginning with a brand new never seen before Port Arthur photo.  Some of the later photos in this post a few of you may have seen...so on we go....

This first photo incorporates 4 major business buildings most of which have highlighted the Cumberland/Van Norman street area for decades.  This photo is dated early 1950's and shows the Lyceum Theatre, The Public Utilities building, the Prince Arthur Hotel and the little service station shown as a Texaco station was the Lakehead Motors Service Station.  It originally was a McColl Frontenac(Red Indian) station and by this date Texaco had purchased all the Red Indian stations.

This then photo, fairly sharp also shows a few more landmarks north of this intersection.

This now photo was taken approx Oct. 10, 2015

This present day photo shows pretty much all the landmarks except the Texaco station.
Playing at the Lyceum shown above was firstly "Rachel and the Stranger" with William Holden, Robert Mitchum, and Loretta Young.
The second film playing also shown above was Valley of the Sun, with Lucille Ball, James Craig, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and Dean Jagger.
The lobby cards and film posters are shown below

This Fort William photo goes back to about 1912.  It is the corner of Franklin Street and Victoria Ave. facing west.  It is difficult to believe that there was nothing but a few houses west of Franklin street back then.

The now photo below has a little blue rectangle showing two homes on Victoria Ave. that still exist on their original property to this day....be sure to click on all the photos once or twice to see them larger and clearer.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

This next then and now photo is one of my favourites as we lived on east Arthur Street and these steam engines went right in front of our home in the 1950's.  The first photo (a museum photo) shows #5274 either picking up or dropping off passengers at the CNR station to the right in the background.  If you drive down Vicker's Street today you are actually driving where the original tracks were.  I have another post on HR&J that explains much of this.  

Then engine's nose would be pretty close to Victoria Ave. shown here.  Off to the left in the "then" photo is "Red" Marsonet's Service Station which is Breeny's Collision Shop today shown below and to the right.

Breeny's and Apple Auto Glass where Marsonet's was.

               

Another Port Arthur photo shows Port Arthur Motors Body shop.  The building still exists to this day, but not sure of it's use.  It is rumoured that this building was once a very popular Port Arthur Dance Hall.  (I'm looking for data on that if anyone can help)

South Simpson Street in Fort William was a bustling community in the 1910's as shown here, but sadly time, deterioration and fire have eaten away at the beautiful vintage structures that adorned Simpson Street.  From the old bank building on the corner of Victoria and Simpson north, there are no structures hardly at all today for at least a full block and a half.

 It's difficult to believe that the photo below is taken in the same general area as the above one.

One more trip back to Port Arthur to see the evolution of Arthur Street (now Red River Road after amalgamation).  The first photo shows the old City Hall being demolished after the fire.  I'm not to sure of the exact date this photo was taken if anyone can help here.  Further down the street is the original Post Office...demolished for a newer more modern structure over time which today houses a huge pawn shop. 

Here we have an early 1950's photo still showing the old Post Office building, as well as many other structures along the original Port Arthur's Arthur Street.

Jump ahead a few years on the corner of Court and Arthur...Corporale's taxi is now the well known Fero's Restaurant, and Birks Stitt Jewellers is on the Corner.  The new modern brick wall to the right of this photo is where the Post Office in the above photos used to be....and of course the Brill Trolley Bus that we remember so well.

As mentioned before...it's difficult to believe that the "now" photos are actually taken in the same exact place...such a dramatic change, but not always for the better.

I'm not sure where I found this last fantastic photo, so I couldn't give credit where due....but we move to Kakabeka Falls to Mark Leiterman and Sons General Store.  This was such a popular place in the day supplying hardware and fuel to Kakabeka Falls and the surrounding area.  When I worked for Shell back in the 1960s, they supplied much of their bulk fuel and oil products, as Shell had bought out North Star Oil and White Rose as well....I sure wish I knew where that sign and visible gas pumps went.

Thanks for watching and be sure to check in from time to time.  Also be sure to check my facebook page (Dave Cano) for other informative photos and captions.

A big thank you to all who donate or loan me their photos to keep the history of Fort William and Port Arthur alive............

Anytown Canada, Northern USA, or Fort William Ontario in the 1940's....

These wonderful winter photos could very well be from here in Thunder Bay(well one is).  The clarity of these pictures are incredible and a must share with anyone who enjoys vintage photography.  This week during Christmas and New Years day is always a time for myself and family to reflect on our past and be grateful for what we have in today's modern world, however, as you can see from these photographs that everyone was as happy as can be enjoying life on a day to day basis back when things were simpler and sometimes happier.

 

This house looks exactly like the one in the movie "A Christmas Story" only missing the 1937 Oldsmobile in the driveway and the Leg Lamp in the window.  The kids are having a great time sliding down the small hill.  This photo was taken in 1940.

Here we have a 1928/29 Ford Cabriolet with opera windows.  I have never seen a soft top with windows like this before.  Oval windows like this were mostly used in commercial vehicles such as roadster pickups.  This photo was taken in 1940.

Here is one more 1940 photograph which could have been taken in any small town Canada or Northern USA.  This is a wonderful picture of a young man on his bicycle with all the great 1930's cars along the street and all the store fronts decorated as they did in that era.  It almost looks like a movie set.

Here we have a January 1943 photo of a caboose man cave....wouldn't any guy love to have this on his property.  The girly photos etc. may have been allowed in those days but not now.  Times have sure changed on the railroad.  The end of the caboose era was about 1990 mainly due to the fact that rail cars had roller bearings by then and there was no need to watch for hot boxes(?) or worn bearings at that time(I hope i am fully correct on that data).

This last picture is a favourite of mine although the quality is poor.  It was taken near where I lived as a kid.  Looking at the picture the CNR engine (Circa 1950) is turning down a spur at the corner of Marks and Arthur Streets in Fort William.  The CNR spur turned east just behind the Kingsway Motel, headed down Arthur Street with a gradual turn north at Marks Street and headed down Vickers Street to reconnect to the Main Line, with a station just before the Fort William Gardens.
In the picture, a small elevator called the Davidson Elevator is just behind the train.  That property is now called West Arthur Place where the Spence Clinic is today.
MacDonald Equipment Co. on the right which faced Marks Street is now a portion of the parking lot for West Arthur Place.  Ray's Esso Service station which faced Arthur Street would be behind the picture taker.
For a little more data about this CNR spur click on this link http://hotrodsandjalopies.blogspot.ca/2009/10/old-canadian-national-railway-spur-in.html
....then reture to this post.

Thanks to our friends at www.shorpy.com for some of the great photos above....and as usual BE SURE TO CLICK ON ALL THE PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM.

Winter in Fort William and Port Arthur - Christmas and/or Winter Related Part 1

As we are abruptly placed right in the middle of winter here in Northwestern Ontario, a number of memories of winters past come to mind. This first 10 photos with explanations will start some winter tales and interesting data!

Albert Massaro, actually not in either of these photos did very successfully drive the little #88 (The Popcorn Special) to compete with the super modifieds that started to travel north from the USA during the 1961 and 1962 racing season at the CLE. The first picture on the float, however says 63 on the side....Well, the 63 stands for the year of one our our most successful winter carnivals in Port Arthur and Fort William. So.....on the float in beards are whom??? ...And, under the year '63 is actually #88. Albert's pit crew is shown in the summer months photo in 1962 so you can see what that cool old Popcorn Special looked like.

WOW...Hot Rods of the Railroad.......here in Fort William. Thanks to my wife's cousin Bill Bishop and an associate of his, Ray Matthews, we have descriptions of these two incredible Huff and Puff locomotives that graced the rails here in our twin cities. These photos were taken in the yard just east of Hardisty Street in Fort William....data as follows:
Bill says, the CP 5307 shown in the first photo here is a 2-8-2 Mikado(class P2A) and was built in June 1919 at CP Angus Shops and scrapped in May of 1957.
Ray says that this engine had been an Ontario engine in the 1940's but by 1949 was assigned to Kamloops, BC., working west out of there...and in '52 was assigned to Kenora, Ont., but after repairs at Weston Shops in Oct '55 was sent to Moose Jaw Sask.....working west from there to Swift Current Sask., until about April '57 when it was sent for scrapping.

Bill says that in the second photo you see CP 5351 coming off the shop track and appears to be taken in the late fall or early winter. The Kam River is still open and the Empire elevator and the crane at the CPR coal dock in the East end of Fort William are visible in the background. 5351 was a 2-8-2 Mikado (class P2A) which was built in April of 1924 at the Montreal Locomotive Works and scrapped in June of 1957.
Ray says that according to his records the 5351 was around Fort William and Port Arthur a lot through from the early 1950's until being scrapped at Weston(Winnipeg) on June 27, 1957. It had been at Weston waiting for repairs from about the mid 1950's. It was shown as coming from the Manitoba District at that time but was indeed assigned to Fort William in 1952.
Thanks guys.....The memory I have is that where we lived on Arthur St. in Fort William, the steam engines went right down our street. My dad had to put 4 nails on each picture on the wall to hold them straight and my mother had a railway schedule on the wall in the kitchen so that she knew when to hang her clothes on the line to avoid the soot!!! Oh...how I miss the soot and the smell of the coal and steam. Remember putting pennies on the track before the train came. It would flatten them out to about 3 times their size.

Here, CP 1405 is what I believe is an F-7 "A" and "B" unit Diesel Engine just leaving the Fort William CPR station pushing a bit of snow in winter with passenger cars in tow heading south then west and taken just under the famed Jacknife bridge about a quarter mile from the station. The next picture is to show you the paint scheme for the 1950's. This is a museum photo of a similar engine(Sorry, I couldn't resist editing the picture to put the number 1405 in the ID plate).


Here is another paint scheme drawing and the specs of an F3 Locomotive. This next picture also shown in winter is the beautiful Port Arthur CPR station which I will do an exclusive post on in coming months. Water street today would pretty much pass right through this building.

This first one here is a wonderful winter Ken Crooks donated photo taken in the 1940's. The photographer is standing on top of the CPR station on Syndicate Ave in Fort William. You can see a rail streetcar heading south down Syndicate Ave. A late 1930's taxi is in the photo and a Winchester Cigarette ad is on a billboard across the street. The street branching to the right is Isabella Street and the large old building on the corner there is presently Caesar's Place where they make the best Calzone's in town.
The last picture here is the Fort William city hall post card taken at Christmas in the 1940's. Our present day Thunder Bay city hall is on the same property. It was always a beautiful sight to see throughout the 1950's at Christmas and brings back a ton of memories.
More snow and Christmas posts to come and again...be sure to DRIVE SOBER, and be careful throughout the weeks coming to Christmas and New Years.
click on photos to enlarge....