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

Fort William and Port Arthur Streetcars.....

Public transit in our city was first established in 1892. The silver boom had recently ended destroying Port Arthur's primary economic purpose. Compounding the matter was the Canadian Pacific Railway's decision to build its grain elevators and rail yards in neighbouring Fort William 4 miles away. With businesses and population vanishing, Port Arthur decided after much debate to build a street car line to connect the town with the rail yards in Fort William, much to that town's chagrin. So in 1891 Port Arthur was authorized to construct and operate the first municipally owned street railway in Canada. The Port Arthur Street Railway (PASRy) commenced operations of a private street railway in neighbouring Fort William, which connected the PASRy's southern terminus at Fort William's northern town limits into the downtown core of Fort William. Although Fort William wanted nothing to do with Port Arthur's municipal railway, PASRy gained control of the McDonald and Company line on June 1, 1893 and extended its operations into Fort William.
In 1907 Port Arthur and Fort William became cities, and the Ontario Railway and Municipal Board forced Port Arthur to sell its section of the railway in Fort William to that city on March 11, 1908 and to submit to operation by a joint commission until Dec 1 1913. Thereafter, each city ran its own street railway - Port Arthur's was the Port Arthur Civic Railway in 1914 and Fort William's was the Fort William Street Railway.
The Street Railways continued operation until late 1948, when the gas and electric Brill Buses took over, and the tracks all around both cities were either paved over or pulled up. Some South Syndicate Ave. track was pulled up just last year during that street's makeover.

Here is what it would look like from an operators view, and next is a ticket for each of the cities electric railways.

This is a familiar photo of a street car in about 1941 coming up Arthur Street(now Red River Road) in Port Arthur. You can vividly see the Prince Arthur Hotel in the background as well as the Pagota stating "Tourist Information" on its roof. The little Ford Model "A" is sitting at the lights at Cumberland and Arthur Streets, and a nice baby blue Lincoln is parked along the Streetcar. The next is a very familiar Fort William stop in front of Chapples Limited, the area which is now fully enclosed by the unpopular Victoriaville Centre area today.

These two photos as well as the next one were taken at the Port Arthur Car Barns which was on Front Street in Port Arthur, one street down from Cumberland Street. This is the present day site of the re-cycle area on Front Street.

Again, this first photo was taken at the Port Arthur Car barns. People would call this streetcar the Toonerville trolley(well this is what my 91 year old dad told me), as it had only one pair of trucks front and rear and was much shorter than other cars were. The next shot here was taken along north Cumberland Street.

Another familiar spot, also presently enclosed withing the Victoriaville Centre is the Streetcar in front of Mahon Electric and McCartney Jewelers. The two story building further down is the F.W. Woolworth store and next to it is the Metropolitan store. The next photo here shows car #564 at an unknown location with the word "Neebing" on the car's destination card.

Here are two black and white photos of different streetcars in front of the Fort William car barns on Walsh Street between Selkirk and Franklin Streets. There is a block of houses there today.

Car #64 is on its way down City Road to Chippewa Park and the B&W photo shows car #33 at the Chippewa Park terminal.
This final picture is a scan of an old post card showing a Fort William streetcar heading towards the camera on Victoria Ave. The picture is taken facing east and shows the old Commerce Bank building as well as the St. Louis hotel on the left side. The huge structure at the end of Victoria Avenue was one of the many huge grain elevators from the time(Elevator "B").

Click on photos to enlarge!