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

The Lunch Bunch BBQ....featuring living legends of our CLE racing days....Louis, Merv and Glen

Much thanks to Roger Rickards for hosting a memorable BBQ at his place with our typical "Lunch Bunch" group and three very special guests.
...left to right - Louis (Bobcat) Tocheri (The Scrapper), Glen Kettering (The Doctor), and Merv Dove (The Gentleman).  As Roger mentioned in his Facebook post...Merv later went on to be the flagman at Riverview Raceways.
They are holding models of the cars they raced at the old Canadian Lakehead Exhibition race track that I built about 40 some years ago.  I didn't have one for Glen's car so he his holding a model of his brother Barry's famous #47 (Bud's Thing)....(RIP Barry)
It was such a pleasure to have these living legends with us on June 24th this past Friday, sharing their memories and escapades.

 The following photos are of the real cars featured above.

Barry and his #47

Merv's Maple Leaf Service Car....

Below, you can see that we did this once before with Merv and Louis at a Canada Day BBQ at Ron Limbrick's place 13 years ago almost to the day.  The suggestion for the boys holding the models was my friend Alan Yahn's......and the funny part is that Louis Tocheri wore the same "Alaska" ball cap 13 years ago...my son Jay had noticed this....Louis must love Alaska...how cool is that.

The following photo is Louis and his #19 typically causing some controversy in front of the old CLE grandstand noticeably filled to overflowing with facing fans.

Louis would say that the racing promoters would encourage a scrap or two in front of the grandstand, and once told me that it was all orchestrated until Tony Massaro accidentally poked him in the nose ...then the real altercations began....which lead to the best entertainment ever.....thousands of fans would pack the grandstand every Wednesday night.  Great memories.

Our host Roger Rickards with Jerry McKenzie

Yours truly with the living legends...

 Click on all the photos for enlargements...

Two of Glen's Cars

Glen with foot on Barry's cut down '34 Ford

Merv looking a little disappointed here....

Merv's Maple Leaf Service Car......

Merv's pit Crew....his brother Reg on the right (RIP) and I worked together at Shell Oil on the Island in the day.

Louis Tocheri and a very talented young mechanic Lorne Hay...Louis said he

was one of the smartest mechanics he ever had.  Lorne went on to be Lyn

McIntosh's mechanic, and assisted many other stock car jockeys of the day.

Louis' BOB-CAT....

Merv and Bob

Dave and Glen

It was such a beautiful day on Friday that we brought our old cars out.  I picked up Louis at his home in my hot rod....he loved the ride over and said it reminded of the old racing days.  

We all enjoyed ourselves very much, and "the Boys of Summer" did also...thanks once more Roger for hosting this special event.

Another CLE race track's unsung hero, Conrad Trombelli....in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario.....

Conrad Trombelli was another unsung hero of our old Canadian Lakehead Exhibition racing days.  About a year ago I received an email from a young lady who was a friend of Conrad's son....sadly I can't find the specific email, but apparently his son had never seen photos of his father in his racing days.  I was able to put some pictures together and send them off to the delight of both his son and friend.  

It starts with a small photo taken from a 1953 program seen further below.  The media often misspelled Conrad's last name, so I corrected it here.  The drivers also posed with other driver's helmets for program photos, so I changed the number that was on Conrad's helmet to the correct number of his race car.  Here also is a typical racing advertisement in our local newspapers.

For those that don't remember, the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Race Track was located between Fort William Road, Northern Avenue and Memorial Ave.  In this photo, Northern Ave runs parallel to the bottom of the photo and Fort William Road is the street running vertical on the right hand side.  Memorial can be seen along the left and top of the photo along the line of trees.

Here's Conrad mixing it up on the backstretch.  The house across Northern Ave in this photos still exists today as shown in the next photo.  Click on all the photos to enlarge them.

The coupe that Conrad is driving is a 1932 Pontiac.  The photo below is how it would have looked before it was cut up for a stock car.....in those days, old cars were just scrap and many very rare and interesting cars were wrecked at the old CLE track.

The pictures and clippings in this post are from 1953 to 1955.  The program insert in the next photo show Conrad in the points race in 1953.  If you're old like me, you will recognize many of the other names on this list.

This one shows Trombelli's car stuck together with Merv Dove's #31.  That's Merv outside his car on the right.  Merv is still with us today and he and his wife Dolly lead a very active lifestyle.

This panorama photo shows the turn 1&2.  The barns in the background were quite close to the Coliseum building and the track, and many jalopies crashed through the fence and into some of those barns.  There are still many of the old buildings including the Coliseum and the Dorothy Dove building still within our fairgrounds.

The write-ups in these clippings were so well done in the day.  If you click once or twice on them, they can be enlarged enough to read.....take the time and enjoy them.

In the note below, My friend Al Yahn (my proof reader) Looked up addresses and names in the 1954, 1958 and 1962 Henderson Directory to find that the old Wes and Jerry's (Wes Inkster and Jerry Whittaker) White Rose station at 231 N. May Street was later owned by Conrad Trombelli and Mel Kompon in 1962.  Al also helps with research on this blog site (thanks Al...much appreciated).

Here is a racing line-up for the 1953 season.  Glen Kettering and Wally Prokosh were both mechanics, and Bob Harkness(the flagman) and Johnny Panvica were selling new and used cars all working for Jessiman Motors then.  Jessiman motors was located on the South/West corner of May and Bethune Street.  The 231 May Street address where Con's was and the old Jessiman Motors property are both vacant lots today.

The line-up above shows that Dominion Motors as Conrad Trombelli's Sponsor.  Below is a late 1940's or early 1950's photo of Dominion Motors as it was on May Street, and sadly how the property deteriorated and lost all it's flair over time in the photo below 

Conrad also drove a 1937 Pontiac Business Coupe shown here.

.....and this is how the '37 Pontiac looked done up for Conrad to race.

Another of Conrad's cars was a 1936 Pontiac 3-window coupe....a very beautiful and rare car in today's hot rod world.

.....and this is how it looked out at the old CLE track.

Here's one more photo of Conrad's '36 Pontiac 3W coupe mixing it up on the track with the boys of summer 1955.

I hope you enjoyed this post about another unsung hero from our old Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Days....The entertainment these guys gave was second to none.  All this was so heavily embedded in my childhood and teen years that I'm constantly compelled to bring you these stories for your entertainment.

These last two clips were added for your reading enjoyment.  Thanks for dropping by Hot Rods and Jalopies.