Looking Down King Street, 1970's and Today

 

I've tried to 'wrap my head around' the above photo for some time now. I was recently in contact with the photographer, Leonard Poole. Not only did Leonard have some engrossing photos of the old version of Portsmouth village and harbour, he also fortuitously photographed the demolition of CLC on Ontario St. But the top photo, which I now know was taken by Leonard, has always been an enigma wrapped in a conundrum when it comes to the photo angle.

Leonard mentioned the photo was taken in one of two timeframes in the 1970's: 1972-74 or 1978-79. Note the presence of two yellow-doored CN forty-foot newsprint boxcars and a script-lettering CP 40-foot boxcar at left. The early timeframe may be more likely, since 50-foot boxcars would more likely be in newsprint service in a later timeframe.

For my own use, and maybe yours, I've included two different angles of Leonard's vantage point (below - camera) and a labelled version of his photo (above) showing Millard & Lumb (M), grocery store now Food Basics (G), City Hall (C.H.) and St. George's Cathedral (St.G.). Note that the streets 'bend' at Brock Street which accounts for the angle of the two latter buildings' domes. The side wall of Millard & Lumb and the receiving door of the grocery store are the two buildings framing the view straight down King Street in Leonard's photo.

The Anglin's coal crane was always a red herring to me. I had seen photos showing it on the left hand side of the view down King Street. But in this photo, it's on the right side. I'm glad to finally get the vantage point straight in my mind!

Modern-day view (left) and 1978 view from Snapshot Kingston (right). It's important to note that Frontenac Village and the arena would now block the since-repurposed M&L building on the left side of Leonard's photo.

CN Tool Sheds at the Top of the Hanley Spur

CN toolsheds were located just east of Montreal Street's Outer Station, south of the CN Kingston Subdivision mainline and above the CN Hanley Spur heading down to water level along the Inner Harbour. They were left in place even after the mainline was realigned to the north between Montreal and Division Streets. Their short sections of rail leading to the tracks are gone, but the Insulbrick  and even eavestroughs over the doors were still in place. Scott Haskill was able to photograph them in 1987:

I took two scratchbuilt sheds for this project, since they both had some detailing and looked about the correct combined length. The one on the left was built to a CP example, scribed styrene painted tuscan red, and the right-hand was built to represent CN, with basswood sides painted grey, with white trim and light blue doors. I did not attept to model the Insulbrick, as I've often found such efforts add too much detail to the very subtle pattern of the original. AFTER re-roofing photo at top of this post. Here's the BEFORE:

I used printed photos of doors, satisfied with the detail and depth they provided after being glued on to the doors. I used a very fine black felt tip pen to add some details. Unfortunately, all that front detail is going to be invisible to the viewer when placed on the layout. Who knows, they may be repositioned in future so I built them accordingly. Rear view:

I wasn't quite happy with the Walthers printed shingle paper roof that I'd attempted to colour. I decided to make my own shingles, using cardstock. A few shades that I 'liberated' from my wife's cardmaking supplies to choose a dark green one I liked. This photo also shows two views of the sheds from Gordon Smithson's fine book, A Bend in the Road, Kingston:

The upper photo in the book actually shows an RS-18 leading a short train down the spur behind the toolsheds in 1976. Finished rear view showing chimney added, paper shingles suitably blowing off and replaced, and electricity meter.

A 1985 photo by Wilf Coombe shows the Hanley Spur rising toward the mainline at right. The toolsheds are at left. The rear view is somewhat less picturesque and photogenic as the front of the sheds.

On the Hanley Spur HO scale layout, here is the initial placement, along the Hanley Spur switch (technically on the wrong side of the station) heading to/from the Inner Harbour. Left to right - the toolsheds, CN telegraph repeater building, Outer Station:

Exploring a new angle, with point-and-shoot camera placed on the spur track in front of the toolsheds:

Alternate placement, alongside the freight shed lead, making the front of the structure much more visible! Decisions, decisions...

Coal Dealers of Kingston

Though Canada had coal deposits in Manitoba and the Maritimes, it was more cost-effective for Kingston’s downtown coal dealers to import coal from Pennsylvania, particularly the Scranton area. In 1881, ships brought the first shipments of hard, shiny and moderately-priced anthracite coal to Kingston. A lakeside dumping-ground was required for ship-to-shore discharge by conveyor belt or clamshell buckets. By 1892, fourteen coal docks, wharves, sheds and storage dotted the waterfront: East Side Simcoe, Locomotive, Swift’s, Baker’s, Foley and Hanley’s, Atlantic and Crawford’s Wharf, Gas & Electric Works, Water Works as well as several institutions. Coal storage capacity within city limits rose to more than 100,000 tons! A 1919 city directory listing of coal dealers:

Oswego, Buffalo and Rochester received coal by rail, trans-shipping it to cross-lake vessels. Rochester-Cobourg, Morristown-Brockville and Ogdensburg-Prescott car ferries brought coal cars across the lake, without any trans-shipping. Arriving by rail, a pit or trestle allowed gravity discharge of the ‘black diamonds’. Deliveries to city customers were made by horse-drawn wagon or sleigh, later by dump truck. No matter how it was accomplished, clouds of black dust could be counted on, as long as coal was king. 

W.B. Anglin’s site at Bay and Wellington Streets had excellent road, rail and water access. In 1865, their sawmill opened, and it could turn out 10,000 board-feet of lumber per day. The lumber operation ended in 1979 with closure of the planning mill and custom carpentry shop. A prime supplier of heating and industrial coal, Anglin supplied Queen’s University and Barriefield heating plants, local industries, Kingston Psychiatric Hospital and the Strathcona paper mill, eventually shipping 250,000 tons per year. Well into the 20th-century, Anglin Bay’s docks were piled high with coal. Anglin also brought coal by CP to the W.H. Norman wood yard at 771 Division Street. Even in the 1970’s, some local customers still heated with coal, though with fuel oil becoming a cleaner preferred fuel for industry, home heating followed suit. Sold to Triheat in 1998, for the first time in 130 years in business, there was no longer an Anglin family member associated with the enterprise. 

Anglin ad, 1902

Breck and Booth’s coal yard at 300 King Street West at the foot of Beverley  Street was established in 1885. Becoming Booth & Company in 1895, operations ceased by 1941.

1903 ad from the Queen's Journal:

                                           

Booth & Co. Whig ad, 1908.

Robert Crawford entered the coal business in 1881. The coal yard on Crawford’s Wharf at the foot of Queen Street advertised Scranton Coal and Coke, and was passed on to Reginald Crawford in 1941. Purchased by James Richardson and Sons, the name was changed to Crawford Fuels in the 1950’s with the advent of oil. Richardsons were sole owners, having bought out Triheat Services partners Gerry Bradford (Bradford Heating) and Frank Lovett (Kingston Plumbing). Interestingly, Crawford’s extensive coal yard incorporated a travelling conveyor to deposit rail-delivered coal to the appropriate shed: pea, chestnut, stove and egg. The sheds and office were demolished by 1967.

William Drury’s operation at Wellington and Barrack Streets sold coal until 1958. Placeholder ad (1946):

Frontenac Lumber & Coal’s yard at Ontario Street and Place d’Armes purchased the Kingston assets of the famed Rathbun Company of Deseronto in 1906. Frontenac’s office building was the original Kingston & Pembroke railway station. 

John Morris took on ownership of the Dennee & Morris Coal Co. in 1961, operating from their site alongside the CP at Ontario Street and Place d’Armes until 1960. Their coal yard on Clarence Street had been demolished for the building of the federal building and post office there in 1956.

William H. Norman Wood and Coal at 771 Division Street was just past the entrance to Gus Marker’s yard. Originally obtaining coal through Swift, Sowards or Anglin, the yard eventually had a CP spur. The yard became the north-end branch of Anglin’s after its purchase by Anglin in the late 1950’s. One of the only coal yards in Kingston with an elevated trestle, theirs was 75 feet long.  The property was vacated by 1969.

Harry Rosen began selling coal at 137 Rideau Street in 1937, relocating to 5 Cataraqui Street and enlarging the share of oil sales. The slogan, “Don’t Wait Till You’re Half Frozen – Buy Your Fuel From Harry Rosen” was a familiar sight on oil delivery trucks. Coal sales ended in 1974. Ad from July, 1952:

James Sowards entered the coal business in 1889 with a sizeable coal yard at the north end of Ontario Street at Place d’Armes. Sadly, Sowards died at the yard in 1914 but was succeeded by sons John F. and James A. Sowards. The company operated the steel tow barge White Star and the PatDoris (below, with Richardson elevator) – a 200-foot steam-powered vessel in use between 1924 and the 1940’s. 

The PatDoris  brought coal to Kingston from ports on the New York side. Purchased by Anglin’s in 1963, the yard operated under the Anglin’s Coal name until 1979. Sowards’ 230-foot long coal trestle with covered shed was a landmark in that corner of downtown, until it was demolished in the early 1980’s. The Frontenac Village community was built on the site in the early 1980’s. Sowards’ slogan: “Sowards Keeps Coal and Coal Keeps Sowards”.

James Swift established his 300 x 100-foot dock and 150 x 75-foot coal shed at the foot of Johnson Street in 1866. The dock saw passenger vessels, wood and coal shipments and freight warehousing. Sold to J.P. Hanley in 1926, the operation remained in Hanley family hands until the coal enterprise was bought by Richardson’s. Large letters proclaimed “Jas. Swift & Co. Coal” on the shed’s roof, with “Jas. Swift Scranton Coal” on the street side. The coal shed featured an elevator and tripper system to deposit coal in the appropriate bins. A spur was apparently installed, with cement unloading hopper at the shed’s north end. A new Swift office, facing Ontario Street was built in 1947 and demolished in 1970.

Coal dealers advertised on matchbooks: 

• S. Anglin at Bay and Wellington Streets hawked “Blue Coal – Tinted Blue for Your Protection”
• Drury at 235 Wellington: “Selling Delaware & Hudson Sterling Coal – Identified by Chemi-Coating”
• Alex MacMeekin of 367 College sold “Lehigh Navigation & Coal Co. – Old Company’s Lehigh Premium Anthracite Coal”
• James Richardson proffered “Favorite Penna. Hard Coal – Your Hudson Coal Dealer – Delaware and Hudson Coal”.

KINGSTON WHIG ADVERTISEMENTS

 Some 1903 ads: 

Some World War II-era ads: 

Some early 20th-century ads, circa 1911, 1917, 1922:

1897 and 1916 Whig coal ads:

Walsh coal ad, 1908:

Sowards pitches in to celebrate Kingston's centenary, 1946:

Anglin Whig ad, 1972:

Rosen coal ads, 1950:

Crossing the Harbour in Winter

At first, the above photo might look like a lakeboat in ice, end of story. Captioned March, 1950 the Canada Steamship Lines vessel Weyburn is being towed through ice, perhaps by the tug Salvage Prince. In the background can be seen the buildings of Royal Military College. (Queen's University Archives). Christmas trees dot the ice road from the mainland to Wolfe Island. 

Brian Johnson is one of five captains of the Wolfe Island car ferry Wolfe Islander III. Today, Brian combines his marine career with writing. Fascinated by stories and legends of the Thousand Islands area he has written for the Kingston Whig-Standard, Telescope magazine and the Great Lakes Boatnerd Website. Brian is also the founding and current president of the Wolfe Island Historical Society. A close-up view shows at least seven workers watching the progress of the tow: 

The 250 foot-long, coal-fired Weyburn was launched in Midland in 1927, plying its trade on the Great Lakes until 1961. Nearly swamped during a November storm later in 1950!  Serving notably in package freight service from the Lakehead to Montreal, Weyburn was laid-up at the end of the 1961 season at Kingston and did not operate again. Interestingly, sold in 1963 to Maryland International S.A. (Mexico) for off-Lakes service and left the Great Lakes, registered Panamanian.  Sailed from Houston TX for Pakistan with cargo of grain; engine failed and towed from Bermuda to Ceuta, Spanish Morocco and repaired.  Tried to cross the Indian Ocean to Cochin, India in a monsoon, forced back and towed to Karachi where she was laid-up and sold for scrap in 1966.

This December 17, 1925 Whig article explains the operations in the top photo:

The open channel was used by tugboats taking lakers from as far east as the LaSalle Causeway to the Kingston (Collingwood Shipbuilding Company in article) Shipyards. Such tows provided work for the shipyards during the long months of winter lay-up. It's doubtful that the hay market was as strong in 1950 as it was in 1925. The tree-marked ice road led to the mainland, where the hay was loaded into boxcars most likely at Place d'Armes for the 'out-of-town market'.

Christmas on the Waterfront

 

Undated corporate Canadian Dredge & Dock Christmas cards showing tugboats and dredges at the Kingston yard. Note the switch over time from grey to black hulls. (Queen's University Archives CD&D fonds.)

A 1978 Christmas letter from the head office in Toronto.

Nearby CD&D, the Bayswater vessel Baygeorge is unloading the last cargo of the season at Kingston, undated.  Note Christmas tree on the unloading boom - it was common for ships to decorate for Christmas. Between coal piles at right is the end of the Sowards hopper car unloading trestle. (Brockville Museum 016.04.22)