Canton Cafe Fire - New Information & Victoria Centre...

Further to the last post, there is additional information about the Canton Cafe' fire that took place in about 1939. With further investigation we find that before the Canton Cafe' the restaurant was called the Elite Cafe' Tea Room as shown in this wonderful photo of East Victoria Ave taken in the 1920's. This photo vividly shows the "Elite" (orange arrow)....then to the right of it would be the bank, to the left is McGillis Clothing, then a Drug Store, followed by North Street, then the St. Louis Hotel, The Royal Theatre, the Commerce Bank with the pillars, Walkers department store, etc. down the street with the Chapples building way at the end.
Although Port Arthur built the street car system, Fort William added the convenience in 1908. This is a great shot of the eastern end of Victoria Avenue in the 1920's. It is clear enough to see most of the buildings on both sides of the street and all the wonderful old vehicles help to date it.

Here is a picture of a brill bus(pretty beat up by this time) on the same spot as the trolley above with the arrow showing the empty spot where the restaurants were. As noted, nothing was ever built there after the fire.

The poster on the right from a 1913 industrial review publication advertises Victoria Avenue as "Victoria Centre" ....a wise place to invest. It was the most bustling area of town and investors could earn 6% on their investment. "The wise ones have invested, why not you??

Little would some of the investors know that almost 100 years later the urban deterioration of the eastern end of Victoria Ave(mainly east of Victoriaville Mall) would end up the way it did today.
At one time investors though that the Lakehead cities of Fort William and Port Arthur would be the new Toronto of the north....What Happened! Thanks again to Al for the photo idea!

Click Twice on the photos for an Extra Large photo!

The T. Eaton Company grocery store in Fort William..then and now.

The T. Eaton Co. Limited grew to become a retail and social institution in Canada, with stores across the country, buying offices across the globe, and a catalogue that found itself in the homes of most Canadians. Eaton's was well known for its customer service, as expressed in its long-standing slogan "Goods Satisfactory or Money Refunded." A rapidly changing economic and retail environment in the late 20th century proved difficult for Eaton's, and the chain went bankrupt in 1999.
Eaton's grocery stores were part of their operation but the one I remember was actually on Syndicate Avenue next to Chapple's home store and across from the Unemployment office on 130 S. Syndiate Ave. The following photo which was taken much before that was located at about 416 E. Victoria Avenue.....I always enjoy the old automobiles in the photos, which help to date them all.

Eaton's opened its foodstore in Fort William in 1929, later to become "Eaton's Foodateria" in the same building with the new "Art Deco" look. Interestingly you can see the buildings on the other side of the street reflected in Eaton's window.....right to left in the reflection is Walkers Dept. Store, the Commerce Bank building(facade still standing today) and on the far left was the Royal Theatre.
The colour photo on the right is the present day building used by the Academy of Learning. In the left photo, the man standing in front of the store is Dr. A. D. Stewart. He is standing below the medical offices(above Eaton's) of Stewart, Jack Cook, Gillespie and Robert Bowl, as well as dentist Jack Langtry. The newspaper photo originally came from William Abercrombie, former manager of Eaton's Syndicate Ave.

Here is Eatons Foodateria after the new store front featuring modernistic lettering and black and white tiling was added. After opening in 1929, the store continued operations at the Victoria Ave. location until October 21, 1948, where it re-opened on South Syndicate Ave as previously mentioned. This photograph was most likely taken in Novermber of 1939, when Eaton's announced the new modern appearance of their storefront. In 1939 city residents could purchase prime rib roast from the Foodateria for twenty-two cents a pound, and have their purchases delivered free of charge, as long as the total order came to two dollars or more. The present day photo of the building and it's use is on the right.
NEXT - Eaton's Foodateria store ad in a March 20, 1940 local Times Journal newspaper...exactly 70 years ago today.

Click to enlarge this ad as well as all the other photos(you will have to scroll the ad up to see it all). It's still hard to believe the items were this reasonable at any time. Thanks for looking........Dave

The Avenue Hotel and The Odeon Theatre...in Fort William, now Thunder Bay, Ontario

The Avenue Hotel, 320 Victoria Ave(Later to become the Odeon Theatre). The first picture shown here on the left was the original Avenue hotel(photo circa 1890...not too many buldings to be seen from the corner of Victoria Ave and Simpson St then). The second photo shows the Avenue hotel built in 1894, immediately after fire destroyed its predecessor of the same name on the same property. The Avenue Hotel was right in the centre of Fort William's business district and was the towns premiere accommodation. When it was new it was described as "among the best appointed houses of the Province" with 40 rooms(later expanded to 70), beautiful oak finishings throughout and its own dray service to and from the station and the docks. Its cuisine was amount its major attractions(with even its own bakery in the basement), and its bar was said to be the longest in town. Even after bigger and more luxurious hotels were constructed, the Avenue maintained its popularity as the choice of touring Vaudeville actors performing at nearby theatres. One of the early hotel's features was a pet bear who was very fond of sweets and was well supplied by his many admirers. The Avenue was victim of several fires, the last coming in 1944 when it was burned to the ground.

The hotel was actually located on a corner of Victoria Ave called McVicar Street. Today Simpson Street goes right through most of the buildings shown on the far left of this second picture, as will be explained as we go on here.

The coloured arrows are as follows: Red - McVicar Street, Green - The Avenue Hotel, Blue - The St. Louis Hotel(torn down not too long ago), Purple(In the distance) is Chapples Ltd(Grain Exchange Bldg) and finally Yellow is the curve going to Simpson Street.
NOTE - Remember going down McVicar street and running right into Club Seaway.
The photo on the right is from a 1913 local industrial brochure and is encouraging investors to the Victoria Ave area.

The left photo is a different angle from the one above, however all the arrows are the same colour to show you what is where.
Now the Odeon Theatre.....I don't have a particular time line on the Odeon itself but this bus photo shows the Odeon which was built directly on the Avenue Hotel property. Anyone close to my age or even younger remembers the Odeon as one of the premier theatres in Fort William(and Port Arthur too). This is actually a 1968 photo and shown on the marquis is "WOW, The Winner, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT". This movie starring Sidney Poitier & Rod Steiger won 5 Oscars including "Best Picture".

A classy Odeon Theatre advertisement and the photo on the right shows a night picture of the theatre and also vividly shows a car just coming out of McVicar Street.

The above is a present day Google Earth shot showing how the present day Simpson/Victoria Avenue intersection has changed. The blue star is the lot where the St. Louis Hotel used to be, The purple arrow is Victoria Ave and is facing west. The yellow arrow is Simpson Street. The pink heavy line is where Simpson Street was cut right through the buildings that existed there and continues on south to Arthur Street. The green star is the old Odeon Theatre/ Avenue Hotel site and finally, the skinny red arrow pointing south was McVicar Street which is now a parking lot.

The Odeon was one of the final five theatres of Fort William/Port Arthur, now Thunder Bay before the Famous Players Silver City opened about 1999, dooming them all. This one operated until that time as one of the main theatres in the downtown south core(Fort William) and played all the latest movies of the day.

This theatre until last year had the dubious distinction of being located across the street from the city's homeless shelter. After it closed it was re-opened as an all ages rave club called the Oasis. It currently houses a pawn shop in auditorium 1, while auditorium 2, the large one with the balcony as well as the lobby is apparently vacant.

I must thank our museum for a small amount of the story content and a photo or two, and also Google Earth for the great overhead...I wish Google Earth had satellites in the early part of the 20th century....wouldn`t that have been great!

One final note - The white front building to the right of the old Odeon is 400 Victoria Avenue. It is presently the Amethyst Gift Centre but during the Odeon`s heyday it was the Embassy Grill, where our family often went for lunch or breakfast.

as usual Click on the photos to enlarge them!!

Metropolitan Stores Grand Opening....

Fort William folks will well remember the original Metropolitan Stores on the north-west corner of Victoria Ave and Brodie streets. The left one is the grand opening of the store back in circa 1934, and the right photo was taken July 12, 2009. It was a Saan store for a number of years since Victoriaville was opened and lately has become a Bargain Shop. The structure is still very much intact. Of course many times its been said that building Victoriaville started the demise of the Fort William downtown district, but it's interesting to see how things do change through 75 years of commerce.....and not necessarily for the better. To the left of the b&w photo is the Fashion Craft Store which later became Woolworth's five and dime store. Note the old 30's car to the right of the black and white photo. Click photo to enlarge

Early East Victoria Avenue Now and Then....

Here's a new slant on the eastern end of Victoria Ave(Our primary cruising strip in the 50's and 60's here in Fort William(now Thunder Bay). You Port Arthurites will get your chance, as I have some great shots of that end of town as well. On the top photos you are looking west down Victoria Ave in about 1938 where Victoria and Simpson streets meet, except now, Simpson St., goes from right to left at the bottom of the photo right through the buildings on the left, which of course are long gone. You also see up the left side of then photo, the Avenue Hotel and after it burned down, the Odeon Theatre was built on its site, now a pawn shop, how sad!

The bottom photos are basically a reverse of the top ones taken on Victoria Ave facing east, but in about 1910. The dead giveaway is the Canadian Bank of Commerce building on the left of which just the facade is there today as it totally burned a couple of years ago but some very smart person managed to maintain the facade of the beautiful building to admire to this day. Hopefully someone will build something behind it some time. Also in the right photo further down on the left is the St. Louis Hotel which was totally demolished last year. Also notice the lack of motorized vehicles as there were probably very few if any at the time. Far down to the end of Victoria Ave is the huge Elevator "B". It was long gone by the time I was born. Apparently you can still see some of the old wood foundation if you are brave enough to cross the tracks there. It's great to go down Victoria Ave today and visualize how it might have been back then and since then as many of the structures did manage to survive urban renewal or what I call urban destruction. Last but not least I want to know who has all those cool '30's cars stored out in the country somewhere.....great hot rod or jalopy material!!

Added July 13, 2009...are current photos taken in the same spot as the oldies on July 12, 2009. No busy downtown Fort William anymore!! Send comments for any questions. Click on photos to enlarge.