Kingston Business Owners in 1909

Some interesting descriptions of Kingston industries, published in a special edition of the Kingston British Daily Whig newspaper, in 1909. Portrayed with text and photos are: Bajus Brewery, Canadian Locomotive Co., Cereals Ltd., Fenwick & Hendry Ltd., Forwarders Ltd., W.P. Peters, James Swift & Co., and R.H.Toye. (Click on any image for a larger version)

Outer Station Colour Panorama, 1961

From the City of Kingston Planning Department files, this panorama (click for a larger version) of the Outer Station on Montreal Street presents a pleasing panoply. An express car with open doors is spotted behind the original station, while a line of posts leads to the parking lot, where several vintage vehicles are parked. A woman makes her way out Montreal Street. Several maple leaf boxcars are in the yard, and a billboard seems to face the tracks. A few cars are parked along Montreal Street, and a mailbox or something similar frames the scene of this simple two-lane road.

CP Relocates its Ontario Street Operations, 1967

As Canada's Centennial approached, the City of Kingston was looking to memorialize the important events that had happened on the Canadian Pacific (Kingston & Pembroke) waterfront station site across from City Hall on Ontario Street. These included the life and death of Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald. To do so, CP would have to vacate the properties they occupied here and elsewhere in Kingston's downtown, in what today might be called a land swap. 

Mayor William Mills and J.R. Strother, a CP vice-president reportedly agreed to the swap in principle in a March 31, 1964 newspaper article. Thirty acres would be required for CP's trackage and the Smith Transport terminal. This swap was a direct result of the city's 1960 planning report by George Muirhead and Gordon Stephenson. The report suggested revitalization of the waterfront across from City Hall, centred on, but not limited to the relocation of the CP yard trackage.

Excerpts from the City of Kingston report, above the name of then-Kingston mayor Bill Mills:

Of interest is the requirement to maintain railway access to CLC and the Kingston Shipyards, though the future of both would not be long. The project file included drawings and photos of the Market Battery and new plans, as well as photos of Sir John A.'s funeral cortege on Ontario Street as well as at Cataraqui Cemetery.

What they gave - a people place which looks much the same 50 years later (CSTM collection STR31724a.001.aa.cs) and only a remnant of the Market Battery:

What they got: CP Express (left, beyond guardrail) and Superior Propane (far right) as seen from the Division Street overpass:

Another view of the hinterland site with Highway 401 in the background. May, 1974 Whig photo:

An additional voice in this story comes from a 2001 edition of Historic Kingston: 

Excerpt from a letter written by George Vosper to well-known planner George Stephenson. It described events following the release of the 1960 urban planning report. The new Urban Renewal Committee's first action was to arrange a meeting with the Vice President and Eastern Manager of the CP, Mr S.M. Gossage at his office in Union Station, Toronto. (This meeting took place circa September, 1962). On the day of the second meeting, Gossage had arrived in Kingston in his private car at the CP station across from City Hall. Several of his staff arrived separately. They drove around Kingston and returned to City Hall where Mr Gossage commented what a shame it was that City Hall's portico was missing. He was told by George Vosper that he himself could be the one to put it back on. The result was a land swap: across from City hall for industrial park property. The photo (below) posted to the C. Robert Craig Memorial Library may show this private car visit. Dated May 4, 1961, CP business car Kingsmere, originally built for the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo in 1927 at Angus Shops, later rebuilt at Strathcona for CP, is pictured by the CP freight sheds across from City Hall in Kingston:

This interesting photo from Kingston Rail shows the Spirit of Sir John A. prior to its dedication in the newly-created park. Apparently when 'steaming' into position, the little D-10 clipped the observation platform constructed for dignitaries! It's on dual-gauge track at the Canadian Locomotive Co. plant:

Links from my main Trackside Treasure blog:

• Kingston's CP-Served Industries - with another version of the land swap
• Boxcars at CP Express - some of the interesting cars spotted at the new facility in the 1980's.
• Switching the CN-CP Interchange  - and industries, as it was done in 1979.

Kingston Waterfront in 1967 on 8 mm film & the Baygeorge

Scott Struik kindly contacted me this week. Scott's grandfather, Robert J. Van Dyke, was on vacation in Canada in 1967, including a stop in Kingston. Mr. Van Dyke's 8 mm film offers a heretofore unseen glimpse along the CP trackage on the waterfront. Starting near City Hall then encompassing King, Ontario and Wellington Streets, the film shows some scintillating signature scenes. The CPR yards and Canadian Dredge & Dock operation (top photo and below- stills from the film), including a lake freighter (see below for more information on this interesting vessel and fleet):

The top photo shows a Baltimore & Ohio boxcar, while the next shows a CP grain-loading boxcar.

Millard & Lumb, Confederation garden and oil tanks are next, the former providing an excellent view of the painted lettering on the end of this building.

My thanks to Scott for sharing his Robert's film recollections. Scott has been rather successful in identifying the scenes in the film, using this blog as a resource.

This seemingly routine lake freighter led me to further discoveries! In response to on online query of mine, Eric Potter kindly identified the vessel as the Baygeorge, of Brockville's Bayswater Shipping  Company. I made some further online inquiries with this valuable information, learning in the process that it's important not to google 'Bay George' unless one wants a plethora of stories on Culture Club's lead singer - Boy George! The actual Baygeorge is shown above in Brockville, taken through the windows of the Bayswater Shipping Co. offices - Brockville Museum 016.04.03.

Formed in 1946, Bayswater operated four self-unloading canallers. Founder George Davidson was formerly an employee of Coal Carriers of Brockville. All ships in his new fleet began with 'Bay' with Baygeorge being named after Mr. Davidson. 

Built in 1912 by Caledon Shipbuilding and Engineering in Dundee Scotland, as Imperial Oil's Iocoma a 248-foot lakeboat, with pilothouse on forecastle and a gross tonnage of 1669, she was requisitioned for WWI service in saltwater trade. Thereafter, entering service in Peru in 1928, Iocoma returned to Canada to provide bunkering service in Montreal and then Halifax until WWII. Returning to the Lakes in 1947, she was renamed Imperial Whitby as part of the renaming of Imperial Oil tankers. Retired by Imperial in 1949, she was laid up at Port Weller, ON. Rebuilt by Montreal's Canadian Vickers as a self-unloading collier, renamed George S. Cleet with a light blue hull in 1951, colours she would wear until her demise, including the top photo at Kingston, and this photo at Brockville, at the Reynolds Coal Co. - Brockville Museum 016.04.23.

Here's another photo of George S. Cleet, showing her self-unloading boom - Aukevisser site photo:

Interestingly, in the Brockville Museum collection, it's possible to find several photos of Kingston's Inner Harbour! The George S. Cleet laboured in her new service until being rebuilt by Canadian Shipbuilding of Kingston, in 1961, now with a 175-foot unloading boom and a gross tonnage of 2174, and renamed Baygeorge. Rebuilt with a cruiser stern and increased rudder size, Baygeorge was considered unaesthethic by some! Here, she unloads the last load of the season (undated) in Kingston - note the Christmas tree decorating the end of the boom! Brockville Museum 016.04.22:

Four years later, also at Kingston, Baygeorge was lengthened to 343 feet, now with a gross tonnage of 3172. Interestingly, at the time, Kingston Shipbuilding manager R.W. Sutton was advertising for welders and fitters to complete the job, and not having much luck. Soon, 'Bayswater Shipping' was optimistically lettered along her side. The mortgage on this rebuilding was called in, leading to the Baygeorge's seizure as part of a voluntary liquidation at the end of the 1967 shipping season, three years after George Davidson's death in 1964. This seizure may have kept her in Kingston, where Mr. Van Dyke filmed her in 1967!

During its seizure, owned variously by Transworld Shipping, and New York's Long Island Salvage, Baygeorge was taken to Hamilton where she languished 1969-1971 before being scrapped by United Metals in 1971, after a long and somewhat illustrious and varied career. Not a bad story for one briefly-seen, seemingly ignominious reposing before Mr. Van Dyke's film camera here in Kingston in 1967!

Some other photos at Kingston, all from the Brockville Museum Collection:

Bayanna unloads at the Kingston coal dock, undated 016.04.41 (above) and on another visit, unloading into Bayquinte which in turn deposits the coal on Anglin's coal dock, undated 016.04.31 (below). Interestingly, the Jacques Gravel, shown at right, was a former WWII Landing Ship Medium landing craft, used in the East Coast pulpwood trade, then a drilling ship of some sort, before moldering away several years in Kingston, before finally being scrapped at Humberstone in 1974 with the name L.S.M.187.

Bayquinte sadly being towed away through the Kingston causeway, east of downtown, undated 016.04.33

 A page of company letterhead 016.04.47

Lots of links: 

• More photos of Imperial Whitby - The Imperial Oil fleet by Auke Visser
• Iocoma - from Marine History of the Great Lakes
• Ship of the Month - Iocoma
• Bayswater artifacts in the Brockville Museum Collection. This page may need to be refreshed - enter Bayswater under Keyword Search/Search the Collection.

Brewers Bakers & Boilermakers Walk

After a month of travelling the Canadian West aboard VIA Rail, it was time to return to Kingston. What better way to re-enter the home front than by consuming some Hanley Spur content? Specifically, the free curated walking tour Ontario Street: Brewers, Bakers and Boilermakers on a sunny Saturday, June 29. Part of a months-long exhibit and special events at the Pumphouse Museum, my wife and I enjoyed getting some fresh air and participating with notable Kingstonians like Mary Farrar and Floyd Patterson in one of two tour groups.

Paul and Tom were the tour guides. We joined Tom's group willingly, having had him recommended by one of three ARK members on today's tour. Bob, Grant and Kurt.

We strolled south along Ontario Street, stopping at the Pumphouse, former location of the Kingston Shipyards and finally, CLC. As our tour guide pointed out, not much of the industrial architecture we were talking about is still in existence - in fact, discovering it would involve some industrial archaeology! Names like Lines and Counter, groups such as Loyalists and natives were discussed, revealing much of the rich history of this industrial, western section of Ontario Street which once lay at the western end of Kingston.

Walking across the Shipyards' marine railway, standing at the reclaimed land that once hosted CLC and learning more about the people and personalities that shaped Kingston's industrial waterfront was most rewarding.

Interestingly, when speaking of some of the downtown fires of Kingston, our tour guide mentioned the Thai restaurant Apsara Angkor and its lemongrass beef. Housed in a sturdy limestone structure built after the fires, we strolled down after the walk and enjoyed some Thai cuisine. We even found Tom and his family there shortly thereafter! They should have added Brunchers to the title of the walk!

Layout Visitor - Mike Shirlaw

Mike Shirlaw stopped by for a Hanley Spur layout tour today. Mike is a fellow model railroader, as well as being a musician. Mike and I met through music and the rail enthusiasm we share came as a surprise! Another surprise was that Mike spent part of his career working for the Canadian Pacific. Where? In New England - Mike was in St Johnsbury, VT. As in the St Johnsbury & Lamoille Valley Railroad - a quintessential Vermont shortline, and one of the signature scenes of the previous iteration of my HO scale layout. Since I changed my modelled locale from Vermont to Kingston last fall, Mike couldn't reawaken memories of working in that area from my layout, though we could still trade some stories about the challenges of model railroading, and what Kingston's industrial waterfront used to look like.

I assured Mike that the layout he was viewing was the most-scenicked and least-cluttered-with-junk that any layout of mine has ever been! These are two points of personal pride as a modeller! I was pleased to be able to share my layout with Mike.

Modelling a Limestone Rock Cut

Rock cut views: after (above) and before (below):

 If you're modelling Kingston, it's not just 'bringing coals to Newcastle' to realize that modelling limestone will be a must-have. I have a berm that separates the CN spur and the CN-CP interchange from the CP line. It's made of 2x4's and some other lumber scraps, covered with papier-mache. Soon after I built it, I painted it with green paint, making the rock face two colours of grey. And I thought it looked 'good-enough' for now. But not forever:

                             

I've been reading about modelling pioneer Frank Ellison and his talent at creating depth on a flat surface, using colouring and shading.  I'm a fairly lazy modeller (perhaps economic with exertion would be a better term) so this type of creative, and easier, approach appealed to me. Visions of shaving and cutting stacks of Styrofoam suddenly vanished! The finished product, which I like much better!

A magician never reveals his secrets. But "Dammit, Jim - I'm a model railroader, not a magician" so here's how I did it!

I Googled limestone rock cut. The Alamy stock image (above) was neat, because it included greenery top and bottom, which would fit with my rock cut. 

These images (click for larger image) fit together. I formatted all three in Paint or Word as needed, pasting and flipping to create non-lookalike images. Prototype images here. After printing, I had more than enough height, so trimmed the printed rock cut images to fit my rock cut. I Scotch-taped the images together to form one continuous image - drilled back on the left side, closer to the spur, and rougher on the right side. Push-pinning them into place, I trimmed the bottom of the printed images to clear rock debris already glued in place. 

Almost finished. Sectionman inspects the results. I white-glued the images into place, paying special attention the joints and edges. The top and bottom of the rock cut are scenicked in to match ground cover and further hide the 'joint' between the rocks and ground cover. I also later added more cut-out pieces of limestone to hide the joints on the paper images.

I'll likely print more images and use them on the berm over by Imperial Oil's warehouse as well. Before (above) and after (below). No, those aren't styrene bases the sectionmen are standing on, they're pieces of...limestone!

Dear Landlord film, 1970

Through the wonders of Facebook and the efforts of the Swamp Ward and Inner Harbour History Project(SWIHHP) and others, here are a few captures from a 1970 film entitled Dear Landlord. For the full back-story on the film, keep scrolling. The views were interspersed with neighbourhood footage and first-person interviews. Leading off with my personal favourite, a view towards downtown from the River Street bridge. Note the (CN?) boxcar at the National Grocers building (top) or perhaps delivering newsprint for the Whig-Standard. The same year this publicity photo of a local band was taken.  Our still-recognizable Bajus Brewery building:

Bikers in Kingston? Yessir! They even tagged the Montreal Street underpass bridge. Note the embankment of the CN Hanley Spur in the background, under the bridge:

Looking up Princess Street: 

Looking along King Street through Portsmouth Village:

The back-story: Dennis Crossfield and others made an amazing film in 1970 about Kingston's housing crisis and how to organize tenants, titled Dear Landlord. SWIHHP was honoured to help Dennis locate the film, and we had a sold-out showing of it at the Screening Room a few months ago. Now Clarke Mackey has done some audio cleanup and it is online for all to see. It shows neighbourhoods you will know, but from a completely different moment and perspective. It also shows, beautifully, Kingston's history of radical organizing, a history not very often known or celebrated. Thanks to all those involved in making the film -- there are some supremely articulate people in it -- and to Neil Roy who notified me it was online.

32 Ontario Street

So read the neatly-written photo caption listing in the Hazelgrove Fonds of the Queen's University Archives. But the slide showed something much more exciting.

Check out the shipyard-to-street gantries that allowed large pieces of equipment to be transferred from the very end of CN's Hanley Spur into the sprawling complex. So much for property values. Now, folks living near the side of the former Kingston Shipyards might complain about the number of storeys, massing or other details of developments along the waterfront.

But in the early-60's, I wonder if these residents of Ontario Street complained about having this very industrial, very gritty operation in front of their front yards. CN drop-end gondola! I can scarce believe that this happened! There are at least three apartment buildings on this site today.

In the late 1950's, this building housed apartments which were heated by coal-fired steam radiators from across Ontario Street. A large pile of coal was kept on the dock, and radiator pressure at the apartments was 125 psi! When R.W. Sutton became superintendent, he reduced the use of coal by putting the yard cranes 'on air' thus 24/7 coal burning was not required, saving money for the struggling yard. 

If I hadn't seen the photo taken from street-level, I wouldn't have believe it nearly as much!

OCTOBER 2024 UPDATE:

I received an email from John Kellar, a former resident at 32 Ontario Street:

Your blog post has provided the only photographic evidence I now have of my residence of the ‘50s & ‘60s. The rattling (as heat cranked up) radiators were by then fueled by an oil furnace located in the segregated basement portion proximal the warehouse. Imagine if you will me attracted to our living room window on a ‘60s dark winter’s night by a fire in the Shipyards across the street. Or so it seemed. Because the Shipyards’ windows were merely reflecting the flames from the warehouse six feet distant from 32 Ontario!

Mr. Sutton, who lived in a similar vintage dwelling on King Street E., said it was arson. I can imagine the dwelling in its heyday, before being divided into our four apartments. My dad turned the backyard ash heap into a thriving garden space, as he did the then fenced front lawn, within which we’d periodically unearth big pennies from the 1850s. 

I saw us as resident in waterfront property, albeit with a train and shipyard in between. I watched the launch of the Locomotive Works’ first diesel engine onto the Spur. Ran to the Shipyard’s emergency whistle of the steam engine’s tumble into the drydock. My dad was the first to operator’s (Ab Mulridge’s)  side.  His family lived in the lower apartment adjacent the warehouse at the time. In the associated duress, Ab’s son Bob, goalie in a local league, wore my dress shoes to his hockey banquet.

Transformers on Poles

It just kept happening! Paging through some archival photos of Kingston's historic buildings, not once, not twice, but three times in a short while I came across these photos. Transformers on twin wooden poles! 

This was evidently a common way to supply power at street level. As I recall, if coloured photos the transformers would be painted a dark green colour.

I knew there was just such a transformer set-up at Macpherson's on Rideau Street. But I moved my HO scale scratchbuilt model to Presland Steel. So I need to build at least two, maybe more!

One of those scenic elements we forget about, in this era of underground cabling and diesel generators for Tim Hortons!