Modelling the Kingston Milling Company

The interesting painted signage on this limestone building at the foot of Brock Street made me want to model it, especially when repurposing my layout's central peninsula into the CP (and CN) trackage in front of City Hall along Ontario Street. As always, space constraints kept me from modelling its full length, or even width. So the basis of this kit bash was finding sympathetic structures in my stock. This turned out to be a $7 build!

The top wooden storey is a $2 train-show find. It wasn't even assembled, it was four walls held together with rubber bands. The bottom storey is a $5 Walthers feed storage shed. I removed the roof and noticed that it fit on the upper-storey perfectly! I removed a lot of the station's wainscotting, revealing that pale yellow styrene.

Test-fitting the structure in the available real estate. I tried a couple of options for the limestone south-end that bore the cool lettering. I decided to use the office of my former Manitoba Pool Elevators concrete grain elevator!

Time to dress it up a bit. Not wanting to have all the limestone paper glued to structures I've built being the same, I printed this page a little on the pink side. I noticed in prototype photos that the limestone here was darker-looking, probably due to its workaday location and the passing of sooty steam engines directly behind it! I painted the upper storey brown; starting the limestone wrapping:

The opposite side, all limestone glued on. I kept the existing windows and doors:

Roof painted, paper glued on, trial on the layout:

I printed off some doors and windows, largely found on Pinterest, and decided to glue these on rather than cutting holes and trying to find window frames to fit:

I filled the upper-storey window openings and weathered the wooden surface, added the first-storey printed windows, and applied lettering using white and black gel pen:

Opposite end:

Now in place on the layout. Dollar-store modelling clay used to adjust the height under the end. Final scenicking and details to be done...

Track side, with the spur extended to the end of the building, keeping the CN/CP lead closely behind, just like the prototype!

Kingston Milling Company

The nexus of Kingston's downtown and the outer harbour led to the rise of Kingston's transshipment economy: lumber, grain, coal were among the commodities that comprised Kingston's commerce in the 19th century and later. It seems incomprehensible today that within this now-tourist area along Ontario Street, that large quantities of grain were brought here - for transshipment to local farmers, for milling to flour, and from local farms to the lakes and beyond. Kitty-corner to City Hall was this rambling grain operation, perhaps best known as the Kingston Milling Company, established in 1884. With painted signs showing tickets, steamboats and tours, this south end of the building was at one time a ticket office and waiting room. Two closeups captioned circa 1880s from an online auction site:

Above are two archival photos I used for prototype inspiration. CPR 424 poses in front during switching. An aerial view shows a spur leading to the building:

Two images from a 1911 fire insurance map do not show an earlier spur that served the lakeside of the operation, but do show the one closer to Ontario Street serving a shed labeled 'hay storage'. The three-part building later had a wooden third storey added for storage (dark blue outline):

Descriptions of the operation from the Whig. Nov 16. 1912:

Aug. 12, 1919

Another advertising feature, undated:

Somebody was fortunate enough to find an original flour bag. Hungarian and White Rose were two of the Kingston Milling Co.'s best-known flour brands. 'Hungarian' refers to the milling process used -developed in Hungary in the 1800s and brought to North America in the final quarter of the 19th century.

A 1920 advertisement:

A 1934 listing of flour mills shows that the operation could produce 150 barrels of flour per day. This operation was located behind the Ontario Street fire station, almost abutting it. That means the fire hall will be my next modelling project. A 1937 Whig clipping also connects the two:

The site was owned by the Allinson family since 1945, home to various businesses, including Brais & Brais General Contractors, Chapman Hardware and (W.J.) Allinson Farm Equipment. One could buy tractor chains, barn ventilators, chain saws, snowblowers, roto-tillers and water bowls for cattle! Whig ad, 1969 (below). In that year, barn and industrial parts were moved to their location on Highway 15, with lawn and small-motor machinery being sold from 237 Ontario Street.

In 1971, Smith Garden & Sporting Supplies was on the site. It's now occupied by the Confederation Place Hotel, built in 1978.

Ontario Street Fire Hall

The Kingston Fire Department fire hall at 251 Ontario Street, designed circa 1876 by John Power was the main fire protection for downtown Kingston from the 1890s until the Brock Street station opened in 1964. The station spanned the eras where fire apparatus was pulled by the department's nine horses until more modern fire trucks took their place beginning in 1918. Undated, uncredited photo showing horse-drawn apparatus (top photo). A 1951 Whig clipping shows the swinging doors at left, more modern roll-up door at right:

 Two KFD trucks in this 1953 Whig photo:

A 1977 Whig photo view up the hose tower:

Opened in June, 1977 as the Firehall restaurant, the building was designated a historic building under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1981. The restaurant closed and was for sale in 1982, opening again in 1991 as the Lone Star Cafe. Ironically, a 1979 fire call:

A 1988 Whig photo:

In 2014, the City of Kingston replaced the mansard roof of the main building and the roof tower with new slate to match the colors and pattern of the original roof when the tower was the main architectural feature. The restoration work also included the reconstruction of the tower dormers, waterproofing, new copper flashing, eaves troughs, ridge caps, and wood repainted. All work performed to resemble the original building based on historical photographs. 

Googlemaps street view 2012 (above) and 2023 (below):

Excerpts rom a 1966-67 Parks Canada report 

REPORTS ON SELECTED BUILDINGS IN KINGSTON, ONTARIO

 

This building appears on the 1892 Goad Insurance Plan, and in an 1896 photograph, as a two and one half storey building (Figure 1 - top photo), constructed of limestone with a brick face and topped by an imposing wooden bell and hose tower. It had a range of stables to the rear, one and one half storeys in height, also constructed of brick over stone. To the south, numbered 239 Ontario Street, was a two-storey brick addition, which was also used as a stable. The facade is three bays wide, originally with sliding wooden doors in the first and third bays. In spite of its utilitarian purpose the hall was constructed with close attention to detail. It rested on a low base of hammer dressed limestone and the corners are bracketed with raised ashlar quoins. The end walls are of coursed rubble limestone, thickly-built, and form a fire wall which rises to a mansard roof which is framed by parapets with carved stone corbels. There are two brick chimneys, side left and side right, but both have been reconstructed. The mansard roof has four dormers, on the front, each with a pediment, two symetrically located on either side of the hose tower; the eaves are bracketed in wood. The central element of the front facade is the hose tower which projects slightly from the rest of the building. It contains two windows; on the first floor the window rests on an ashlarlugsill, has an original six-on-six glazing pattern, and is emphasized by its rounded head and an ashlar arch and keystone. The second floor window is larger, also rests on an ashlar lugsill, has a rounded head with ashlar arch and keystone.

The north endwall has an offset door and large inset of unknown purpose on the first floor; the former has a wood frame with a flat arched voussoir in hammer dressed limestone. The south endwall, also of coursed rubble limestone, is hidden by a recent two-storey brick store attached. The rear facade at the time of writing is being demolished, to be replaced by a concrete block wall. Originally it was of coursed rubble limestone with irregular fenestration. The mansard roof was broken by five dormers, irregularly placed; these matched the front dormers in size and decoration. When the rear stable was demolished, the openings were filled in with concrete blocks.

The interior, now completely gutted and in the process of being converted into a restaurant, originally was set out for equipment storage and stables on the first floor, with sleeping rooms, offices and storage on the second. The tower\was used solely for drying hose.

In 1911 the wooden floor of the first storey was replaced with concrete; in 1918, $22,000 was spent motorizing the Fire Department, and the rear stables were renovated for storage. In 1922 the hose tower, "being in a dangerous condition," was reinforced and reduced in height; this eliminated the fire bell, which had been rendered obsolete in 1916 when a new fire alarm system was installed. To replace the bell, a flagpole was added to the apex of the tower. In 1932 and again in 1938 there were further repairs to the tower.

The Ontario Street Fire Hall served as the centre of Kingston's fire fighting activities until 1954, when the main part of the Fire Department was moved to temporary quarters at the City Incinerator site. In 1956 a new station in the western suburbs superceded this as headquarters, and in 1964 the city built another fire station on Brock Street to protect the downtown area. Since this time the Ontario Street Fire Hall has been used for storage. 

A list of early firefighting equipment:

• 1874 Merryweather fire engine, disposed of 1909
• >1876 Ronald Steam fire engine (Chatham) rebuilt 1923
• Early 1890s chemical engine and hose wagon
• 1909 large hose wagon
• 1910 Waterous steam fire engine, replaced by truck in 1924 and held in reserve until 1935
• 1911 ladder truck
• 1918 first motor equipment was a Reo truck
• 1923 Ruggles truck
• 1924 Ahrens Fox combination pump and hose truck
• 1924 ladder truck, first drawn by a Reo truck used as a tractor...
• ...in 1926 ladder truck got a more powerful Reo 
• 1928 Ford car for the Chief
• 1929 Reo combination Waterous pump and hose truck (below, 1942 photo)
• 1932 Chevrolet car replaced earlier car
• 1935 Seagrave pump and hose truck
• 1939 Ford V-8 car
• 1943 LaFrance 85-foot aerial, arrived in late-1944. Whig photo - Nov. 8, 1944:

Photo posted to social media by Tom Meers:

• 1948 LaFrance pumper:

• 1951 LaFrance pumper
• 1965 aerial truck

 

CP Gantry Crane

Model railroaders often get garrulous about the wisdom of modelling team tracks. Originally named for the teams of horses that took wagons right up to the track to unload from a freight car, they're referred to as the 'universal industry'. For customers that don't have their own spur, it's a low-cost alternative.

 Opposite City Hall in CP's yard was this unique-looking gantry.

Photos or plans are hard to find, having tried Pinterest and the CPHA documents library. That's OK, I can gage it pretty well from the nearby boxcar. Note that it spans a track, an unloading ramp and enough room for a truck to drive underneath. That's a truck scale at the bottom left of both photos (above).

Yet another view from Diesel Day in 1951:

Careful study reveals the horizontal girder is an above-and-below set-up! Get me rewrite!

I decided to model this somewhat spindly crane. I used some Central Valley sprues, a random girder and a rather large crane hook. 

It's a proof-of-concept crane. It's in a high-traffic location and might get dislodged. or I might find a better prototype photo. A future version will have better block-and-tackle/chain details and possibly different proportions. I'd also like to find out when it arrived and when it was dismantled.