HOT RODS and JALOPIES

A Celebration of Life in Lyn's home town will be held this Friday in Thunder Bay...please read the news clipping below, and enjoy the film that was made for his induction into the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame.

OK...here we go. Yes, this is me circa 1946. My dad had recently returned from England after the WWII years and we were on a typical Sunday outing in the car. The car he had then was a Studebaker Erskine.

After my father recently passed away, I started searching through our family photos again and came up with a couple of interesting ones of yours truly. This photo was taken in front of the original McKenzie Inn on Lakeshore Drive. I was a pretty chunky kid when I was little...but the cool thing is that I am standing beside a very rare double visible gas pump..."A Wade #2". I wish there was a picture of the whole pump, but the fact that it has two hoses is a dead giveaway. I guess I was more important than the pump was in those days.

The two pumps shown here are very similar to the pump shown in the photo of myself above. I'm not sure what brand of fuel was sold at the McKenzie Inn.....it could have very well been B/A with the old bow tie logo shown at the left. It definitely was not Gilmore as shown on the right, which was a very popular American Brand in the day. I'm just adding these photos to show you what a double visible looked like.

Sorry....here's one more old 1946 photo of myself, taken at Boulevard Lake in about 1946 as well....the interesting find in this photo was the fact that I was drinking chocolate milk from a Thunder Bay Co-op Dairy milk bottle.

Here are the three sizes of Co-op milk bottles that are presently in my collection. The Chocolate milk was sold at corner stores mainly in the smallest bottle, and the other sizes as well. My dad's good friend Bub Kellough also sold cherry milk at his "Dairybest" dairy.

Some stories about the Thunder Bay Co-op Dairy are shown in a couple of posts on my blog pages here - Click on this link then return for more - THUNDER BAY CO-OP DAIRY

MORE RACING AT THE OLD CLE

I loved going to the dirt track races at the CLE...and obviously you know that, but when the Championships came, the excitement was overwhelming to a young gear head like myself. The International Dirt Track Stock Car Races at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Grounds were the best anywhere. Here is a cover page from a Sept 25, 1957 program....I was 13 when this program came out, and the next print here was on the first inside page of the program stating only 25 cents to go to the races, which was very affordable for a kid in those days.

The following two rare colour photos are favourites of mine...not too crisp but you get the idea. At the beginning of the race day in 1957, the cars and drivers would angle park at the rub-rail and in front of the Grandstand, so that you could get a glance of your favourite drivers and cars.

The red and white '34 Ford in the middle of the first photo and lined up for the first race in the second photo was none other than my favourite of the day, Barry Kettering.....there are many photos and stories in my blog pages about Barry and more of many of the other drivers, so if you haven't already.......search out all the pictures and stories.

Here is the Roster for the above race day....you can see all the drivers names who participated as well as the fact that they came from near and far to race for the big money. Literally thousands of spectators would cram the old grandstand to watch the thrills and spills.

NEXT - My mother's old BEATTY

This is an actual photo of my mother's Christmas present in about 1947, just before we moved into our first NEW house. It looks and sounds a bit sexist, but my mother loved her new washing machine. The one she had before this was a gas motor powered one that you had to kick start.......and hopefully it would start. When it was running, it would vibrate itself from one side of the back porch to the other....she hated the old one, so this was pretty much a miracle for her.

The photo of my mom's Beatty is a little fuzzy....but I can't improve it... The Beatty ad is a real 1940's magazine ad and the colour photo of the lady with the "Connor" brand washer is from our friends at Shorpy.com. The big thing was to keep your fingers out of the wringers....

NEXT - A Rare Local Photo

This next local historical photo was a puzzle to me for a few years, It is of a visit from Lord Willingdon, Governor General of Canada's visit in the 1930s. I started searching building tops in and around the Port Arthur downtown area and where dignitaries came and went from our Lakehead cities. I have come to the conclusion that comparing the two following photos, the picture was taken on Syndicate Avenue in front of the CPR station facing Cronos cafe.....Check it out for yourself!! It is a wonderful and fairly crisp old photo with some great billboards shown on the store in the background and to its right.

The last picture for this post below is also quite interesting as not many people have noticed what advertising was painted on the south side of the James Murphy Coal Company building to the right of their signage. On close scrutiny you can recognize a big arrow...and definitely see that it is a Wrigley's Spearmint advertisement.

We hope you enjoyed this post and as usual be sure to click on all the pictures for enlargements.

A huge thank you to all the people through the years that took some of the wonderful photos that you see on these blog pages as well as those who have graciously donated historic photos to this site.

Thanks, Dave

HR&J wishes you and yours A Very Happy Easter 2015

We were always very happy kids and at Easter time it was always quite special. Easter brought back thoughts of spring, green grass and leaves on the trees as well as tulips and flowers....but most of all because we could get our bikes out and enjoy the beautiful spring weather. Scroll down for more!!

Bugs Bunny was always my favourite Easter Bunny anyway, and here he is, driving his Hot Rod in "Hot-Rod Hare".
I still have a few of these 10 and 12 cent Gold Key comics.

I really like this 1959 Easter morning photo.....My sister and brother are chowing down on their chocolate getting primed for their hyper sugar high for the day, and here I am, already to head out for Church with a not so pleased look on my face while I wait for everyone to get ready. I always wondered why my parents let them eat all that candy before we headed out as they were absolutely wild in Church. I remember those Easter Baskets were around our house for years......and often wondered where they got to. (Love the curlers in my sisters hair).

It's too bad this picture isn't a bit clearer.....Here it is 1962, and my sister and brother are all ready to head out to Church on this snow-less Easter morning on Arthur Street in Fort William. The car with the visor on the right is my first car...a 1949 Chevrolet 2-door sedan. In those days everyone parked on the street in the 1400 block of Arthur Street in Fort William.

Here is another snow-less Easter in 1953. My Easter present was pretty much the envy of all the kids on the block. I never did get a brand new bike until I started to work, but my Dad would pick up a bunch of bike parts, bring them to Kam Motors Body Shop (where he worked) to repair, and Canary Trevisan, the painter at Kam back then would paint and pin-stripe the wheels and frame. I was a pretty lucky kid because I had the only custom bicycle in the whole neighbourhood.

Don't forget the movies of the day included this musical..."Irving Berlin's Easter Parade". My mom would force me to go to these musicals under major protest. She figured she could drum some culture into my life....LOL. Be sure to click on the posters for full screen enlargements.

Pretty hokey.....but this is how the musicals were in the 1950s......."Easter Parade"

Click to play then X out any ads etc...then click the bottom right hand corner to enjoy full screen.

This next picture is of no one we know, but thought it was of the same era and shows all the kids dressed in their Easter finery, including their Easter bonnets.....and Mom's and Dad's two Fords in behind.

So....Have a Happy Easter - from our family to yours. Enjoy Easter with your family.......

The Canadian Lakehead Exhibition here in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur was always a huge annual event. We as kids could barely wait until the CLE started, and the excitement for children is still there today. In the old days however, everything was BIGGER and BETTER..... Many factors have caused the CLE to slow down somewhat for reason's I do not understand....just the fact that the race track is gone is pretty disappointing in itself, as the fair hosted many types of entertainment that could be viewed from the huge grandstand which actually held thousands of people, such as the Thrill Drivers, High Wire acts and of course our original Jalopy Stock Car Racing which began in the 1920s and ended at the fairgrounds in the 1960s with the demise of our 1/2 mile dirt track. There were many more booths and displays than there are today as well, and many more people attended in the day.
Here we have a little collage of the CLE's south/west portion of the fair grounds, which includes the CJLX radio booth. The Dave Ross colour photo dates 1961. The "On the Air" portion of the collage is from Mike Wolowich dated 1959, and the Big 5 portion is my own from 1965

The Royal American Shows hosted the rides after the second world war back in 1947, and "The Death Dodger's" entertained at the racetrack. They also gave away 60 attendance prizes culminating with a 1947 Mercury Sedan. Car giveaways continued into the early 1960's. The fair board gave away cars every night and actually gave away a home in the early 1960's which exists to this day on High Street.

Looking closely to the right of the Port Arthur and Fort William buses at the turn around terminal on Fort William Road, you can see the famed Co-Op Milk Bottle. "Meet me at the Bottle" was actually printed on the bottle and it became THE meeting place for many, or even a place to find mom or dad if you got lost at the fair.

The Bottle and a ticket I saved from 1963........

Here's a couple of photos of a bear and it's trainer at the milk bottle in the late 1940's

Here's a close-up of the inside of the Milk Bottle showing all the 5 cent prices.

Do you remember purchasing a "brick" or a "1/2 brick" of ice cream from the milk bottle?

The bumper cars were always my favourite....These old metal bumper cars are extremely expensive to purchase today if you can even find one.

...and Finally of course was the fabulous CLE stock car racing.....I can still smell the dirt and the fuel today.....Oh to go back....wouldn't it be wonderful... I hope you enjoyed this little flashback of the old CLE days.....D.

I've always wanted to tell this story....most of it is fact but keep in mind that some is somewhat hearsay. I've been told this through the years and believe it to be the truth. The story will develop into wondering why us gearheads preserve vintage tin.
The story begins in 1927 when a young man named Jack Merlin came to Fort William with his father at the young age of 3. Jack and his family lived in Montreal, as his father was working for Canada Car and Foundry there. His father was promoted to Superintendent of the Fort William plant in 1927 so off they went to make their home here at The Lakehead. Jack himself began working at Can Car in 1941 at the age of 17 and retired in 1989. During this time two important things happened.....
Firstly he had an affinity for old cars of which he purchased his first at age 12.
Secondly, during his tenure at Canada Car and Foundry he had purchased a General Electric Diesel/Electric 44 ton switch engine from the then Great Lakes Paper Company, which he had stored at Can Car for years. Near the end of his years there and when it became Bombardier, the switcher was still stored there. He felt that he had kept it all those years so why not take in home...which he did....no easy feat.
...Now when you travel west up Oliver Road and not too far before Murillo....look to your left and you will see Jack's train on a short piece of track set back on his property....you may also notice a few old vehicles along Oliver Road near the train, however what you can only see from aerial photos thanks to google earth are literally 100's of vintage cars there mostly from the late 1940's to the late 1960's. I had the privilege about 12 years ago to visit Jack's collection with my old friend Clarence Merko, and was blown away by the massive amount of fully intact cars in there, and apparently none for sale...mainly because of their accessibility....I hope that someday, Jack's family might let people in to see this collection much of which may or may not be restorable......so now some photos.

The original Great Lakes Paper

Mill and Woodlands Logo.

This is one of the many Great Lakes Paper's Original switchers

but not Jack's. This one is #128 and the GLP logo is shown on the side.

Here's GLP #129 - not Jack's either.

This is what you will see as you head out west towards Murillo on the south side of Oliver Road.

To the left is a close-up of Jack's train on the property and the photo on the right is the same engine - a GE44 Ton (again...built by General Electric between 1940 and 1957). This engine was also used in Europe during the war years. The paint scheme had changed somewhat but it was the Great Lakes Paper engine. The window configuration is exactly the same.

The next photo shows approximately where it is located on the Merlin property and also shows the massive amount of cars from a Google Earth photo. Oliver Road runs east and west along side the property on the left. The top of the photo would be east and the right would be south.

This next photo is a similar photo turned showing Oliver Road along the top....left is west and right is east.

Jack Merlin was a great guy, and the visit that Clarence and I had those many years ago was very memorable. I remember seeing Jack at auto auctions around our city and was always likely to win with his bid. I must also mention that Jack ran "Merlin Motors" in 1960 as well as working at Can Car. There is no phone listing in the 1960 phone book, so if any of you remember where Merlin Motors was, I can add that to the post.

The next part of this post is firstly a story that was posted on this blog in January of 2015....it's a great memory written by my friend George Rogers who now lives in Winnipeg......It is about the excitement in finding an old piece of junk when we were kids which was always elusive as we were either run off someones property or we could never afford it at the time.....this falls in line with all the vintage tin still on Jack's property....still elusive to this day.

Please click on this link to view the post then return for the rest of the story.... Field of "A's"

This is a photo of the guys wife who wouldn't let us kids purchase the cool potential hot rods.

This final group of photos are a few of my own field finds and what they became over the years

'32 Ford Coupe before from Mankato Mn.

My '32 Ford as it appeared in American Rodder magazine in 1995.

This Old Stock Car Chassis

....and this old stock car wreck
from about 1954

The Chassis and Body parts on the left were restored to the modified race car here. This was another check mark off the bucket list.

Many of you have already seen the before and after of the model A sedan I drive.

Last is my present Model T custom project.....it started as the partially primered sedan in this field of dreams, but took me way to long to finish to the "Thai Teal" sedan you see in the last photo below.

Thank you to Jack for preserving that diesel engine and all those great cars...thank you to George Rogers for the impressive local story and thank you to all those who held back from scrapping all that tin and saved a few pieces for guys like myself to resurrect them into something new again. It's been a blast....my fuel tank's almost on empty...no more projects for me.....LOL.

It's been great fun doing Halloween posts through the years on HR&J, and this year I thought you might enjoy some of the "best of" on Hot rods and Jalopies that were posted for Halloween plus a few more....so....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2016 TO ALL - enjoy

If the weather stayed fairly nice, the Intercity Drive In would open for a "SPOOKTACULAR" evening of scary films some of which you will likely remember. * Be sure to click on all the photos if you want to see them larger...

Here's a less than two minute trailer of "The Blob" Starring of all people Steven "Steve" McQueen in one of his early films playing the character "Steve". Click the arrow in the middle to view.

....a few more to watch with your honey at the drive-in......

Well maybe you wouldn't watch the above one with your girlfriend....maybe your kid sister or brother....LOL

This Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi classic scared the hell out of me when I was a kid.

NOW DON'T FORGET TO RETURN THE SPEAKERS TO THE STAND BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE THEATRE........

The spirit of Halloween lives in all of us....it's easy to recall the joyous times we had when we were kids growing up and now our kids, and kids kids are enjoying the same fun we had. The following are a few vintage pieces of advertising from the 1960's and before.

Here's a couple of pieces of Texaco advertising using the good ol' Jack o lantern to let us know that it's Halloween and from this point on "It's Gonna Get Cold".

In the Spirit of Halloween and The Munsters, I'm sure some of you gearheads have built these two model cars by AMT sometime during your life.

Two of George Barris' designs above were the Munster Coach and Drag-u-la. My friend Dennis and I had the distinct privilege to meet George Barris at his shop after we attended the Grand National Roadster Show in January of 2014. George has since passed away and left an indelible mark on the hot rod culture in both our countries.

Dennis Winko, George Barris, Dave Cano

One of my all time favourite Halloween moments were when my great friend Ron Clark and I dressed as the Blues Brothers for a Halloween bash at the old Armani's on Victoria Ave back in 2003. Ron's son Steve Clark is of course the leader of The Sensational Hot Rods show band. In these photos, we were up on stage singing "Ghost Riders in the Sky". Ron has since passed away and is dearly missed by many...RIP my old friend.

Thanks for checking Hotrods and Jalopies...hope you enjoyed the post.....

It goes without saying that industry boomed here in our Lakehead cities throughout the beginning and middle of the 20th century. Coslett Machinery and Equipment was one of those success stories along with many others, beginning in the 1920's and possibly before...I have no historical proof before the 1920's however. The business boomed through the years mainly at 571/573 S. Syndicate Ave. in Fort William and on Lorne St. in Port Arthur with a brief stay at a building at 608 S. Vickers St in 1968/69. (research by telephone books and Henderson directories).
One of my all time favorite porcelain advertising pieces was the following United Service Motors sign, which adorned the Coslett Hardware building in the 1920's.

The Coslett Hardware Co. (Coslett Machinery & Equipment Co.) were one and the same. In 1951 the proprietor was William R. Coslett, and the sales manager was William R. J. Coslett. (I believe father and son) They were Industrial Jobbers and distributors for pumping systems and pumps for all types of diesel and gas generating, logging, construction, municipal, industrial and mining equipment, marine diesel and gas engines, market garden equipment for golf links estates etc. They sold machine tools, woodworking machinery and sawmill supplies, belting, oil filters and batteries, power mowers barn equipment and a plethora of hardware supplies to the general public as well. They were quite a diversified company.

Here is a newspaper advertisement showing the inside of the store in the 1930s. To the right is a fairly large (about 1 foot long) mirrored thermometer advertising the company from my personal collection. Below is the enlarged top portion of this showing phone numbers before the dial telephone system came to our twin cities. They also had a location at 188 Lorne St. in the downtown area of Port Arthur off Cumberland Street.

As mentioned above Coslett's sold hundreds of different items including Naphtha Gas in bottles as shown in the following two photos (thanks to Russ Wanzuk for allowing me to photograph his bottle). On the label was also the "United Service Motors" logo, and it also showed their address on Syndicate Ave. It is quite an interesting bottle with a glass stopper from the 1920s. From Wikipedia - Naphtha is a general term that has been used for over two thousand years to refer to flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixtures. Mixtures labelled naphtha have been produced from natural gas condensates,petroleum distillates, and the distillation of coal tar and peat. It is used diversely in different industries and regions to refer to gross products like crude oil or refined products such as kerosene. We always used it to start briquettes in the BBQ.

Below is an original invoice from my files from 1928 where Coslett's were selling items to Pigeon Timber Company from Port Arthur.....its fun to compare prices. Be sure to click on all the photos to enlarge them.

Matchbook Cover 1950's

This is how Coslett's looks today as Henderson Glass.....

Their Port Arthur Store would have been down here on Lorne St.

Here's another angle of the building taken in early spring...note the reflection of the Ogilvie Elevator in the right window.

The photo on the left is the last known location of Coslett Machine...there is a new building there now as shown in the photo but the address was 608 S. Vickers St.
Hotrods and Jalopies hope you enjoyed this post....... Posts to now stand at nearly 3/4 of a Million views. Thanks for looking all these years.

The Hot Rods and Jalopies generation is about memories, flashbacks, and reminiscing, and what better time of the year to dive into the past than Christmas..so here we are again celebrating everyone's favourite season with our first post of December 2016.

Yes I do occasionally re-use the odd photo from past years but they are needed to add to new stories and posts for interest sake. Here is my father in 1958 loading a pile of trees that he just chopped down, likely in the Oliver Lake area...one of which will be used for the Annual Kam Motors Limited Christmas party. As you history buffs know, Kam Motors was located on Leith St. in Fort William....the building still exists to this day, but Kam Motors had a depot as well....later located at May and Bethune St. across from the old Spicer's Tire store but before that it was located on the north/east corner of May and Donald Street.....as you will see in the photos below.

The first of three photos I found in my slide archives show the inside of Kam Motors Depot during the 1958 annual Christmas Party. Hubert Badanai Sr. would regularly play Santa, but I can't positively say that is he as Santa here. My father would also play Santa on occasion. To the left of Santa I believe is Vince Marsonet who worked for Kam in the day, and the elves are Patricia Kempinski(Kam's accountant) and Theresa Dika(Kam's bookkeeper). When Kam Motors closed, Theresa ran the "Tobacco Pleasure" smoke shop near the southern entrance to Victoriaville., but notice out the window is the western wall of St. Andrew's Church and the edge of the white building you see was Gibson Motors. Gibson's was located on the south/east corner of Syndicate and Donald Street, later to be torn down to build the IBM building.....note the 1958 Chevrolet banner on the wall.

Here you can see the present day photo of St. Andrew's church wall as well as the new multi use office building that stands today which was originally the IBM building.
The next Christmas Party picture below was taken in a similar position but has myself in the photo at the far left assisting with the distribution of presents, with Vince Marsonet next, Theresa Dika then my kid sister Daryle on Santa's knee, Pat Kempinski and an unknown child in the foreground

The next photo is taken at a completely different angle showing the south/west 1958 intersection of Donald St. and Syndicate Ave. An old house is still on that corner (later to become McLeods Hardware store)...next is the old First Baptist Church, torn down a year later, and the old St. Patrick's Cathedral torn down to build the new Cathedral soon after. I'm the kid in the front row with his arms folded and to my right (your left) is Donna Bodnarchuck. Donna and I were close friends through the years as our parents were best friends also. I like the little Chevrolet advertising hanging from the ceiling, as this area was used as a new car showroom.

The picture to the right is how this corner looks today....the old McLeod's store used as a bar on and off for years, the new St. Pat's Cathedral in the background and the stairs to the Victoriaville parking to the right.

The photo below shows how this corner looked when King George VI visited in 1939. It was a Red Indian (McColl Frontenac) service station called "Nolls Motor Company" and was also a Studebaker dealer in the day. The Imperial sign shown is actually on the opposite side of Donald St., and would be where Gibson Motors was.

When Kam Motors purchased the property in 1950, it looked much like it did when Nolls was there, but was totally remodeled at the front and side to completely enclose that portion to make for a larger showroom. Over time the building was changed over and over many times. It was once owned by Dominion Motors as well as Bourke's Drug Store and The March of Dimes. The photo below shows what the building looks like today.
The photo on the right shows a not so clear Gibson Motors in the day and what has become of that property across from the old Kam Motors Depot. Be sure to click on all the photos to enlarge them for better viewing.

Two more interesting photos here at the end of this post....the first is what would be under a hot rod/gear head's Christmas tree....an internet find, but thought it to be hilarious.

......And Finally....a news clipping advertising the Chapples Annual Santa Claus Show....something we couldn't wait for year after year that would put us all in the Christmas Spirit....
I hope this post put you in the Christmas Spirit............
Click on this link for one more post from my younger days at Kam Motors Depot... http://hotrodsandjalopies.blogspot.ca/2012/11/1955-chevrolet-dream-possibility-and.html

While celebrating the upcoming Christmas season I'm happy to say that The Hotrods and Jalopies Blog pages are also celebrating that we have had more than 3/4 of a million views since the beginning in 2009...and while doing this for fun and enjoyment never expected the response we have received.....so with thanks HR&J continues as long as it can to reach the one million mark. This site has also inspired many other local history pages in the last few years on line and on facebook as well. If you are a facebook fan, visit the Dave Cano FB page to view more historical and interesting happenings. Also be sure to visit the other history pages on FB as well. Thanks again for the support. D.

CHRISTMAS 2016 post #2 .... click on all to enlarge

Christmas has always been a great time to advertise many things .... such as automobiles. There is a 1946 post war ad for Nash, about six months after VE day WWII. Everyone was so happy the war was over.

Traditions are so important at Christmastime. One such tradition through the years were "Japanese" oranges or "Mandarin" oranges. They were originally wrapped in green rice paper and shipped in wooden boxes....in later years the oranges lost their green rice paper for the most part and are shipped in cardboard boxes mainly and come from China and a few other countries as well. As a child you may have found one in the toe of your Christmas stocking. The Seiko box to the right was in my garage for years filled with old car parts....

From my favorite Christmas film "A Christmas Story" comes the Daisy Red Ryder 1000 shot saddle carbine....and for only $2.95 (plus duty in Canada it says..LOL) To the right of the ad is my very own Red Ryder wood stock rifle that I've owned for ....well....uh...oh.... "many" years, and haven't shot my eye out yet.

I have to tease my kid brother Corey as he wasn't born quite yet when this next photo was taken......my kid sister and I call those times "Christmases BC" (before Corey) :) :)
This photo is circa 1955/6....we always had a beautiful tree that I remember and my dad would put on all the old "lead" tinsel.....we all survived lead poisoning.
We were very fortunate....My mother always make Christmas extra special with her baking and tons of love for the three of us until we lost her at a much too young age in 1974.

This next one of yours truly is the costume I used playing one of The Three Kings in our Christmas pageant in grade 6, and right next to me is our first DuMont B&W Television set....in later years in our rec room my future wife and I watched Elvis and The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show on that old TV.

This circa 1960 Christmas with my brother Corey playing with his Matchbox toy cars....and my sister is astonished at how those toys kept him quiet for a few seconds.....sorry bro...just kidding. My brother still has that old Eaton's Hi Fi set on the left....In the day it was top of the line for musical and radio entertainment...it even had a short wave....I remembered hearing programs in many languages late at night...... Yes...Christmas helps bring back all those great memories.

Below is the last family Christmas photo on this post....It was taken after Santa Claus came in about 1957, with my sisters doll and doll house but also my treasured MARX service station, that was on every boys wish list in those days.

Jumping ahead past the 1962 Christmas season are these few February 1963 Winter Carnival photos. Many photos such as these exist of this carnival but these are the ones my father took and I recently scanned the slides to extract them to digital. They are quite good as far as quality. The sign an button below are in my own collection. The sign is about 10" diameter and the button is about 2 1/4".

As mentioned way above, click on all these smaller photos to enlarge them. The photo above is the Lakehead Stock Car Club parade float. On the float is Albert Massaro's #88 Popcorn Special modified dirt track racer coated with float flowers and sporting the number of the year of the carnival. Albert and his pit crew are also on board. The photo is taken just in front of The Dunbar Sign Store...the building to the left is the old Simpson Hotel on the corner of Dease and Simpson St. That building is long gone now to a present day empty lot.

The photo to the left is taken just a little more north of the old Dunbar Sign store. The larger building you see is 411 Simpson and listed as The Coronation Block in 1959. Nick Matwin(barber) was located there, as well as many tenants upstairs.
The photo is the old Fort William Fire Dept. Steam pumper. That pumper is in need of restoration today and resides in the glassed in area adjacent to the Museum today.

The Canadian Foresters float is shown here also with the year 1963 emblazoned on the rocket, and taken in front of the Coronation Block as well.

In the same location is Port Arthur's Hammarskjold High School's Viking Ship float.....it's great to see floats decorated like these. I totally miss these old parades. It was a time when our twin cities (as two cities) would compete to see who would have the best shows and parades....then after amalgamation in 1970, it seemed that the competition ended and the quality of these events ended with that.

The present day photo below is the same location shown above....all the buildings are there except the Simpson Hotel and Simpson Taxi stand. The businesses today are Import Auto Sales and Trims Barber shop.

In Christmas posts in the last few years I made up some tongue in cheek fake magazine covers with Hotrods and Jalopies as the title. Here's one of the two I did for this year, and I will post all 7 from the last few years in an upcoming post.
Hope you still enjoy reading HR&J posts....I've rounded up many more vintage local racing photos and they will be posted with stories in coming weeks and months. Thanks again for making these blog pages a fun success. Merry Christmas to all....

Be sure to check back on the last two posts to view the 2016 group of Christmas Memories on our blog pages then come back to read this one.
Dave and his entire family wish that your holiday be blessed with Love, Peace, Joy, and Happiness, and may it extend the whole year through. MERRY CHRISTMAS.

This old 1939/40 Christmas Telegram is one of my favorite Christmas pieces. It was a very important means of communication particularly overseas through the early years of WWII. Obviously I removed some of the personal data. Click on all to enlarge.

Here are a couple of old CPR Telegraph office signs...the second being a bit older than the first.

The CPR Telegraph office in Fort William was located on the corner of George St., and May St. in the old Royal Edward Hotel building. The corner later became a restaurant which is presently closed after the building was renamed The Royal Edward Arms.

"The Royal Eddy" still stands without the CP Telegraph office to this day....a few pieces are broken off the top facade of the building but it still stands like a fortress from our old town of Fort William, Ontario. The Queen actually stayed in this building.

Quite a few years later in about 1961 we were celebrating our Christmas at home like every typical middle class family did with our tree, usually cut down in the Oliver Lake area and an abundance of gifts that we were supposed to be extra good to receive, but even if we weren't so "good", we would receive them anyway. We were very fortunate kids and never got too greedy with our Christmas requests. My kid brother Corey and I loved trains since we were small, as our uncles and grandfather had worked for the CPR. We still both share the interest. With left overs from my own model trains, in about 1961, I built a little layout for my kid bro, and as you will see he was overjoyed with his gift.

Christmas Eve circa 1961

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Now for some history circa 1949....The photo below is of my wife's Aunt Phoebe Bishop with her two sons Martin and Billy. You have to imagine where they are today with only a few landmarks available to locate the spot. They are sitting on a snow pile about where the lobby area of the Fort William Gardens is today. The building on the left is the Fort William Armory, and there are three buildings in this photo which still exist today to help us locate the spot.....the two houses on the right are on the corner of Leith and McKellar St., and a little store on the corner of Archibald and Leith St., near the right center of the photo.

The photo to the right courtesy of Google Maps shows the two homes that are in the photo above, however the store is not visible here but shows up in the next two.

This one shows Syd Bishop with his two sons Martin and Billy as mentioned above. They are standing beside a Brill Bus Float waiting for the start of the 1949 Winter Carnival Parade here in Fort William, Ontario. In the Orange Square is Min's Grocery Store and Confectionery at 220 Archibald Street on the N/E corner of Archibald and Leith Sts. in the day. That building still exists today.

Syd Bishop was the Fort William Transit manager for many years. He is shown in the far right of the photo below near the original spot where the transit building was located on the south side of Walsh St., between Selkirk and Franklin Sts.

The new Thunder Bay Transit Building on Fort William Road is dedicated to my wife's uncle Syd Bishop.

Most of the Fort William parades during the winter time and/or summer always began where this skating rink was located in the middle 1900's. This is McKellar Park where McKellar Park school stands today. Many kids hockey games were played on this rink and many other rinks around our twin cities in the day. I played goal for the Elks Pee Wee Hockey organization in the early 1950's, just before I found an affinity for downhill skiing.

The following picture was also taken on the same ice surface as the one above....you can see the high windows of the old Armory building....the kids are having some fun with an ice skating race.

One more last family picture of our Christmas mornings back in about 1958. Pay close attention, not to my kid brother playing with my service station again but to the box on the left top of the photos which reads....yes you guessed it...."Hot Rod Kit". I think every kid my age got one of these at least once in their life for a Christmas gift....and as you know, the words "Hot Rod" never left my vocabulary ever since these days....LOL That is me in my jammies on the left and my kid sister above my kid brother....but wait, what was in that box. Here is a present day photo that someone had on ebay for sale...Imagine someone keeping it all these years. I never kept mine or my service station, but I've found a Marx service station which I still have.

This is what was inside that box.

One more Christmas treasure....a 1952 Woolworth's Christmas book dated 1952....A Trip in Santa's Ribbon Candy Rocket. Many people don't even know what Ribbon Candy is....

There is one more story to tell, but I won't tell it, It's about what the "Ford Rotunda" was. The image below says Christmas at the Ford Rotunda. The final three images below are free books that a kid would receive if they actually visited the Fort Rotunda during the Christmas Season. Please Click on this link to view the Wikipedia story of the Ford Rotunda - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Rotunda

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND THANKS FOR WATCHING ALL YEAR.....Many more posts to come in the new year including some local stock car photos not yet seen..... D.

A Very Happy New Year to all our friends and followers here on Hot Rods and Jalopies and on Dave's Facebook page. More posts to follow in the New Year.....

Here's an 80 Year Old Happy New Year greeting....and yes there is a car on it.

Now for a few good old "Happy New Year" cards and photos for you to enjoy, plus a wee little bit of history. Firstly is my namesake Minion "Dave" wishing you a Happy New Year.

And now a little history....let's go dancing tonight to ROY (not Ray as it says) CORAN and his ORCHESTRA....at the CLE Auditorium for only .50c.....and right next to Roy's advertisement is a 1935 Happy New Year January 1935 calendar cover with Shirley Temple...Does anyone remember this wonder child?

A Very Happy New Year from the Munsters have one....."just one now" ...on us......we'll never know how the Munsters celebrated on New Years Eve.

As we get older.....here's the type of drink I would prefer on New Years Eve.....some clever person made a marshmallow snow man in a hot tub of Hot Chocolate. I can see the Baileys in it....can't you??

A few more Minions wishing you "All the Best".....and the Peanuts Gang playing musical chairs at their New Years Eve party....

Click on all to enlarge.....

Start the New Year Right with someone you truly love.......and know that with all our troubles and sorrows........

And FINALLY........hope you all have a fabulous year ahead...thanks for watching and keep in touch...it's easy.

Well....Finally back at the Blog pages.. I've been spending too much time on my face book page when I should be spending the time here. This post is long overdue but you race car guys will have to wait for more vintage racing photos and stories, as this one is pure local history.
I am starting off here with a couple of my most favourite photographs of downtown Fort William even before my day(photo source unknown). They are both taken circa 1930 by the vehicles in it. The first one, facing west on Victoria Ave is taken just before the May St. intersection where the Model "A" Ford sedan is making a turn to head north on May St.. The second one is taken a block west on Victoria Ave. Making a comparison in the second photo to today is sad because as we know, Victoriaville takes up most of the street, and with rumors of its demise....we are still waiting.
This is a fairly long post as I have been working on a few things separately but I'm just going to put them all together into one.....and as usual be sure to click on all photos to enlarge them and if you get a + sign...click once more for x-large.

White's Drug Store is just past the Cigars sign on the right...the intersection in 1930 is May and Victoria...

The intersection coming up is Victoria and Brodie...the Victoria Hotel is on the left and this all would be Victoriaville now.

Next:
By printing this following collage we would hopefully encourage the city to preserve a very historic building that apparently is coming up for demolition ..... Jan Starr wrote this comment last month. The property in question is located on the old Ogilvie Elevator property, as shown in one of the photos below....Click on to read...

Next|
Only stickers now appear to let you know where your vehicle was purchased, but in the middle to near the end of the 20th century, very cool little metal pieces of advertising were added to your car when you purchased it....and to mount some, holes were actually drilled in your vehicle to do so. The following pieces some of which I have in my own collection and some photos were donated by Boris Krystompol to add a few more to the local list.
The original location of the dealers is shown with the trunk advertising.

Hillman Sales and Service was originally located on the corner of Edward and Gore Sts. in Westfort

Twin Port was a Studebaker Dealer and located on the corner of May and Bethune Street in Fort William near the original Spicer's Tire Service and Kam Motors Depot.

One of the Jessiman Motors locations on 730 Memorial is where Parts Source and a flooring store is today......I wish Boris would sell me these to add to my collection... LOL.

Gibson Motors was where the Power Centre is today.....and that whole area was always called "Intercity".....which we all knew meant somewhere between Fort William and Port Arthur...

The last one is Port Arthur Motors which was located where Tony and Adams is today on the corner of Pearl and Court Street. The Chevrolet/Oldsmobile dealerships, Port Arthur Motors and Kam Motors Ltd., were both originally owned by Hubert Badanai Sr...... later to become one dealership on Memorial Ave.

NEXT - remembering Al's Wonderland. Albert Massaro was not only a very well known stock car driver in the 1950's and 1960's but was quite the entrepreneur, business man, hockey coach etc etc. I had the privilege of knowing Al in the day, and did some work for him when he had his Al's Wonderland. I painted this sign for him as well as built many of his picnic tables for him and also painted and lettered many of the Go-Karts he had at his place....so here's the sign I did and glad I had photographed it just when I finished it....who knows where it is today. The present day picture beside it is courtesy Google Earth and still reveals the spot where Al had his Go Kart track and his last "Wonderland"... we sure miss Al and all the good work he did for hockey, racing and everything else he was involved in. RIP Albert Massaro.

NEXT - We have some then and now photos.....The first is The Thunder Bay Co-op building which still exists to this day proving that great structures can be re-purposed over and over for a much cheaper cost than ripping them down and re-building....and also preserving local history....

I had seen this C.P. Drug store pill box sticker and at a glance didn't know that it was a local piece until I took a closer look to reveal the actual address where it was right across from the CPR station on 419 Syndicate Ave...in the building we now know as "The Arcade" building.

The next then and now is Wanson's Lumber on 277 John Street. It is interesting to note that the original building on the left in the first photo is still in used today, and apparently some of the original office building is still in use as well.

This Fort William photo showing two Brill buses, one a gas powered and the other an electric powered trolley is quite interesting. Of course we all know the Chapple buildings...the large one in the middle and just a bit of the home store on the left of the late 1940's photo. When you enlarge the photo, you can make out the word Hurtig just above the bus in the centre of the photo. Hurtig Furriers owned the corner building until the early 1950's when the property was purchased by Heintzman's, which was mainly a music store, but also sold some furniture, radios, early tv sets and of course records. Heintzman's had booths where you could take your record into a booth and listen to it before you bought it.

When you view this old photo, it's hard to believe its the same building.... "The Victoria Block" as in the photo below it. The "then" photo is of Walkers Dry Goods all decked out for the Christmas Season in the early part of the 20th century. The facade was changed drastically through the years and modernization pretty much diminished the desire to even go inside....however I do remember Walkers Department Store in the 1950's when at Christmas time they would have their windows all decked out in the current toy trend and had an American Flyer model railroad layout in the basement that would bring shouts of glee to any child, and likely empty pockets to many fathers wanting to please their kids.
The Victoria Block now houses Barbie's Bargains which I believe is still there.

WOW...the CPR station after over 100 years still looks pretty much the same. The first photo is likely taken in the very early 1900's. I remember riding my bike there as a kid and seeing the model of the big lake ship which is now housed at our museum, and punching out a disk about the size of a toonie on a machine with your name and address on it for a dime.....oh...and having to pay a dime to use the toilets...so one of us would get voted in to crawl under, use it then hold the door open for your friends to continue to use it....LOL...great fun...
We watched the trains come in from destinations east and west and dreamed of traveling by steam train to some of those unknown places.....It's great to see that beautiful building stand the test of time.

Awe....the Embassy Grill....Sundays after church heading to the Embassy with your family to have coffee or chocolate milk and toast.....things like that were a rare treat when I was a child...but the memory lives on today, as the building still exists as the Amethyst Gift Centre...and as it says on the newspaper ad "next to the Odeon Theatre"..... great memories...

I know I've posted this before but the memories of hanging out at Ray Charles Texaco in my teens and twenties is still quite strong....When Ray and Charlie were there, they embraced all us teens, letting us use tools, have small credit accounts and we would reciprocate by cleaning up after ourselves and respect our other friends that hung out there....it was awsome times. The photo is of my own '55 Chevy sedan delivery and on the trailer behind me was Ken Pawluk's Camaro Late Model... we were heading to Riverview for a test run.... Roger Rickards and I are slowly working on a great story about the service station history of this spot...which will be coming up soon.

This is the last part of this post and not so much a then and now but just a "THEN".....I was truly a huge Roy Rogers fan and the wonderful childhood memories of those times are still with me, as my saved so many things for us(bless her heart). I still have my Post Cereal Roy Rogers button set because many of the buttons I collected as a kid were pinning to an old beanie, and were saved in my bottom drawer of my dresser from when I was a kid to the present day......I will have to get rid of this stuff eventually...but for now I can still enjoy them and write about them.......
Thanks to everyone for being patient with my posts....I still have a lot to write about. I'm getting older and slowing down a bit....but if us local history buffs don't preserve the memories, no one will!

THANK YOU

We'll start off this post in Kam Motors used car lot in about 1939. Here is my father Jonnie Cano in the front trying to look cool sitting on the fender of a who knows what, with a couple of co-workers taking a break from filling oil bottles or replacing a windshield on an old Chevy or Oldsmobile. It looks to be a mild winter day.
The "Kam Motors" proof is the portion of the sign in red and shown close up after. Obviously the houses are no longer there as that whole area to the lane way ended up being a car lot in the day.
I always say it, but it is a reminder to click on every photo once or twice to enlarge.

Here's an old circa 1950 Kam Motors brochure showing where the lettering was at the top of the building front, and a fairly current photo of the same building on Leith St. today.

We've talked about Dinty's many times in the past on this blog site and of course you know by now if you are a reader of this blog how Gordie Crompton came to use the word Dinty's.
Below we have more to add to the story beginning with Dinty's Sea View Motel....The Sea View still exists as shown in the following photo but not called Dinty's.

We talked about how Gordie was offered a neon sign from a sign company left over from an unpaid customer. It didn't have Gordie's name on it but had the word "Dinty's" on it and he ended up taking it, then obviously making some of his future business ventures called Dinty's.
Below is a photo of #57 Jalopy Stock Car built by the Provincial Paper Mill who actually hired a guy named Barry Kettering to drive it.....pay attention now because many of HR&J's stories are inter-twined. The race car is parked on Cumberland St., right in front of the first Dinty's (red square around the sign).....and you know later that Gordie ran a few KFC's (Kentucky Fried Chicken) places after the Dinty's ones finally closed.
Today's KFC is two properties just to the left of the original one. When you do research you have to look hard at old photos....the backgrounds tell many other stories.
There are two different photos here to see the original neon Dinty's sign. The person standing and the kid in the car are unknown. If anyone recognizes them, please let me know.

Here you can read Dinty's very well....

In this photo...car U2 with well known American driver Dean Harrington in the foreground, Dinty's is the building on the left with the upright facade, and the building on the right was a McEwen Husky Fuel depot then. That building still exists today and the original Dinty's is now an empty lot.

This is how the property looks today...the empty lot was Dinty's and as previosly noted, the KFC is two properties to the north of the original.

.....the building on the right was Ron Wilson's Lakehead Speed and Custom shop in the 1960s.

Here's a truly historic then and now. The then photo of course are those great jalopy stock cars that we write about from the 1950's kicking up dirt along the backstretch of the old CLE racetrack.(I can name them all.) Behind the race cars is a tall fence to keep out freebee onlookers. Behind that is the old bus turn around between Fort William and Port Arthur remembering at one time one would have to change buses to go to Port Arthur or back to Fort William.....
At that same time the Electric brill buses existed which powered themselves from the overhead trolley lines.
The bottom photo is taken basically in the same location as the one above it.....that corner of the CLE grounds of course is paved now and is to the east of the now damaged golf dome....all at the corner of Northern Ave and Fort William Road.

Here is some 1950's memorabilia from the Lakehead Stock Car Club days(human and other..LOL)...The handsome guy on the left is Merv Dove and if you remember, he ran the famous white #31 Maple Leaf Service car in the 1950's, was more than once or twice voted The Most Gentlemanly Driver at the CLE and later became one of the top flagmen at Riverview Raceways....A guy that could jump higher than a car while waving the checkered flag. Merv is wearing his original jacket from the day...and to the right is a closeup of the Lakehead Stock Car Club logo and a closeup of Merv's crest.

Below are samples of the club cards from the actual Lakehead Stock Car Racing Association from 1957...the white card being the driver's card and the red being the pit crew's card. The first card is circa 1953 and actually called the event a Jalopy Race. The light blue one is from 1963 and was likely one of the last racing cards from the CLE days.

GO KARTS....those little 4 wheel powerhouses that started something which was considered a fad in the late 1950s and has continued over time to be an important tool in race car driver training.
Well, yes we did have go karts in those days and yours truly had one too...already written about in this blog, but most people don't remember guys racing them in the Sears parking lot in the day. Parking lot racing ended with businesses having to kick everyone off their property because of insurance issues....they didn't want the liability of someone getting seriously hurt and making a claim against the businesses or company's that had large paved parking areas. After that, specific Go Kart tracks had to be built designed for their type of racing and had to carry some serious liability insurance. The last parking lot organized racing was in the late 1970's at K-Mart on Arthur St.

I don't know the source of these following photos, but they are truly incredible. In the Go Kart below is none other than Ross "Pappy" Fowler well known in the 1950's for his #10 Jalopy Stock Car and racing at the old CLE grounds. These photos were all taken at the Intercity Plaza parking lot in the early 1960's. Most of the faces I don't recognize, so if you know anyone else in the photos please let me know.

Ross "Pappy" Fowler #10 CLE

I don't know for sure but it looks like it could be Barry Kettering on the far left....he used to wear that type of hat. Here the photo faces north and you can see the northern end of the Intercity Plaza property showing the bank and the life insurance company....to the left would have been Loblaws Grocery Store where I worked in high school.

My son Darren at K-Mart 1980

Pappy Fowler here again....and also the south end of the plaza...

The last part of this post is a memory of Red Top Cabs. I've had a large door decal around my house for years and here it is along side one of their business cards

Here is where Red Top Cabs was in the day on Simpson Street......Hope you enjoyed this post and always remember you can make comments....it's easier than you think. Thanks for watching....Dave

Read the Daily Times-Journal, Fort William, Ontario. This is an old sign I was very fortunate to photograph lately as I had never seen one of these before....believing its from around 1950.

The Daily Times-Journal was created in 1899 when the Fort William Journal merged with the Fort William Times. In 1902 the Daily Times-Journal became the second newspaper in Canada to adopt a weekly payment plan for paper carriers, and I was one of them but not until 1955.

This 1953 Times-Journal coverage of local Stock Car Racing in the day was phenomenal as each story was published like a mini-novel with photos included. Ross "Pappy" Fowler was a fan favourite of the day and the fact that the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition grandstand could hold over 5000 spectators. Both of these photos advertised the above two important advertising components needed for the CLE to keep local racing rolling along for 13 more years after this coverage. Be sure to click on all photos and clippings once or twice to read.

In 1963, the Daily Times-Journal covered one of the most momentous stories of our time.....The Assassination of President Kennedy to the finest detail.

......and of course we delivered these newspapers either as a newsie on the street corner or door to door. In 1955, if you nailed a newspaper route your were known as a very tough kid.....you had to ride your old CCM down to the Times Journal building here in Fort William to pick up your papers....they didn't deliver them to your doorstep as they do now, and you had to fight off the tougher kids to find your place in line. Once you got your papers, you'd have to load them into your bicycle as shown below without it falling over, then off to your route which could be quite a distance from downtown....then fold them all (a very special way so they wouldn't come apart on a toss)...then deliver them. You would then try to collect your money from your customers weekly who invariably would likely not pay for weeks or maybe not at all. It was a tough job, but a pretty good job for a kid. You learned responsibility and entrepreneurship to maybe start a business of your own one day. The CCM with a large carrier was the bicycle of choice of the time here in Canada anyway.

In this picture the paper boy would get a kick in the butt from a customer because he folded the paper wrong and it would come apart on a toss.


IT WAS A TOUGH JOB....

....NOW THIS IS THE WAY AND ONLY WAY TO FOLD NEWSPAPERS

CCM was the bicycle of choice in Canada, and the Daily Times Journal in Fort William was my employer..........

My actual paper bag...still have it.

The Times Journal building on May Street in Fort William still exists, but it has changed a ton over time from a beautiful structure in the 1920's to a fairly modern uninteresting building, however they still circulated and shared world and local news for many years until the amalgamation of Fort William and Port Arthur into Thunder Bay in 1970. The new newspaper, The Chronicle-Journal was a combination of the Daily Times-Journal and the Port Arthur News Chronicle....a fitting name for two tremendous newspapers.

This door and alleyway on the side of the Times Journal building was the pickup point for all the Fort William newspaper delivery boys.....I was a little skinny kid back in 1955 and usually was one of the last kids to pick up my papers....I was a lover not a fighter...LOL ...........they were great times😊

This is not an actual local photo, but a delivery truck bringing newspapers to all the corner stores and there were literally 100s of corner stores in the day, would likely look like this in the late 1920s.


Above is a super photo donated by Richard Houston showing May St. in Fort William facing North and the old Times Journal building in the bottom left hand corner. There are many landmarks in this photo that are long gone....Circa mid 1950's.

This is how the entrance of the old Times Journal building looks today decorated to the 9's by Victoria's Cupboard who now inhabits the building. They maintain its unique architecture and continues to look like a very strong and important edifice.

If you were lucky enough to have given your paper boy a tip at Christmastime you might have received a card something like this back in 1952.

PERSONAL NOTE: I am very sorry for the lack of posts on HR&J this winter. I've been spending too much time on my facebook page "Dave Cano", and if you want to see more photos and small stories you can find them there if you belong.
I wasn't able to spend too much time on the computer on a regular basis and I am going in for a hip replacement soon. Once healed up, I will be able to spend more time at the Hotrods and Jalopies desk....but for now, I worked on this post over a few days to get it up and running......so I will return in a few weeks or maybe a month and have many more stories for all of you....thanks for tuning in to HR&J. Dave

Top photo #24 -?, #88 Albert Massaro, #87 Tony Massaro, #10 Don Marsh.......

We love to confront our broad perspective on history by seeing what was and of course what is now. As historians we enjoy placing pictures over pictures to visualize how it was. This one of the CLE Coliseum building taken in about 1957 is a perfect example along side the same Coliseum building we can still see on a daily basis if you're so inclined....you can actually go and stand on the same spot today where Albert Massaro's #88 car was.
Double click on
photos to enlarge.

The next photo is a little different....It is John Panvica driving the #83 1952 Studebaker....now John wanted this pretty ugly car mainly because it had a V8 engine 3 years before General Motors started putting them in their 1955 Chevys.
John didn't care what his car looked like. It was still faster than your typical flathead Ford and faster also because the Studebaker was only one year old. John had purchased a wrecked newer car and did do pretty well that year, and oh, you can see the Coliseum building behind the fence too. How his car might have once looked.....is the nice new 1952 Studebaker 4 door sedan below.

The program line-up for 1953 below shows a picture of John and also shows him listed in the roster squared in blue.

A note here is that Jessiman Motors at that time was located on the South/West corner of May and Bethune Street where the new Tim Horton's is today. Many of you will well remember the names on this stock car jockeys list from 1953.

This is what the SW corner of May & Bethune looked like before the new Tim's was built.....Jessiman Motors was right on this spot.

Just as all those CLE racers did, many of us young racing enthusiasts had to find some great race car material when we dug in our heels at Riverview Raceways. Mind you, the old jalopies at the CLE could very well have been some very cool hot rods today. Now all these years later we realized that we destroyed some pretty cool cars too. The nice Teal car top left is a 1956 Pontiac 2-door sedan....the race car of the same vintage is my own that I raced at Riverview in 1968. I had actually destroyed 4 old Pontiacs, 2 1955's and 2 1956's in total until I retired from racing. The bottom photo in the left group photo is the location the race car picture was taken, near the corner of Brock and Frederica Street where I lived at the time.
The top of the two photo collage on the right is an advertisement for Bear Safety Service located at 519 E. Brock St. Sam and Aldo were incredible front end men, and I brought many a vehicle there for a flawless front end alignment. The building still exists today and near the top left of the bottom photo you can make out a bit of the original sign down at the southern end of Syndicate Ave.

Here's a nice photo of the Uncle Franks's Supper Club sign just before the building and sign were being readied for a total makeover. My friend and HR&J proof reader Al Yahn and I decided that we should take a picture of our cars in front of the sign before it was gone forever....we're so glad we did.

Uncle Franks was a pillar of the community for many years, and it was very nice to see someone purchase the old building and re-purpose it as another already well known eating establishment, known as Beaux Daddy's Grill House.
It's nice to see that the building was saved from the wrecking ball.
Kudos to Beaux Daddy's.....

Red Top Cabs was located on the north/east corner of Leith and Simpson Street as noted on the business card in the following collage. I've had the metal flake decal from quite some time...and can't remember where it came from or actually how old it is. It is quite large and likely would have been used on the doors of the cabs.

The following group of photos are such a part of my younger years. We lived on Arthur St., about half a block east of Vicker's Park. The CNR steam trains would go right down Arthur St. from a spur off the main line, and right past the house where I lived, then make a slow turn to the north starting at Marks St. towards the CNR station just before the Fort William Gardens....heading right down Vicker's St and re-joining the main line at the northern end. The picture is taken just east of Marks St......the little grain elevator in the background is a Davidson Elevator (There were a few small Davidson's around the Lakehead including one on Hardisty St. which is now Boles Feed). To put this all in perspective the photo below shows Arthur Square on the corner of Marks and Arthur St. which is the exact location of the little Davidson Elevator.....there were many other small businesses in the area as well.

Continuing on with my neighborhood, I was quite a Roy Rogers fanatic as you can see. At this young age and as I stood in the back yard of our brand new house on Arthur St. there was nothing to be seen between Franklin and Selkirk....everyone was just starting to do their landscaping, garage building etc.

Here is our house, how it looked in about 1954....my kid sister is leaning out the window as I stood on the train tracks across the street and took this picture. Try to stand on Arthur St. on this spot today and you'd be run over. My dad's mint refurbished wreck 1952 Chevrolet midnight blue, parked in front of our home. If you go by there today, nothing much of the house has changed.

In the last two pictures taken from our doorstep facing north, you can see the train tracks across the street as well as a good view of the south side of St. Joseph's Boarding School as it was called then. In the distance in the black and white photo to the right was St. Patrick's high school where I went for 3 more years after Selkirk High and where I met my future wife.
With my dad being the body shop manager of Kam Motors, he was able to fix a few wrecks for himself, but the '57 and '58 Chevrolet's you see below were actually company cars....the managers would get a new car to drive in the day...soon to end when the 1960's came along. Oh, by the way, that's my little sister Daryle sitting on the hood of the '57.....she wasn't quite 5 years old.

Hope you enjoyed this new post....
Dave

The photos on this post may have been the best of the best when it came to keeping the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition carpenters in gainful employment during the 1950's. The wooden fence was to keep non paying cheapskate fans from viewing the unprecedented dirt racing excitement for free. The fence was built without even an eye width crack in between the boards and I had heard that even knot holes were covered with an additional piece of wood.

However, this didn't stop the jalopy jockeys from helping the non paying customers to a free show by continually cleaning out yards and yards of fence. Initially there was just a wooden fence beside the track. Along Northern Ave., and just outside the wooden part was a wire fence with a barbed wire top.....The fair folks weren't fooling around when it came to discouraging free viewing.

Obviously that didn't deter the stock car pilots from tearing up most of the fence, so the fairgrounds opted for wooden beams all round the track, just inside the stockade. Some people thought they were only railroad ties, but closely scrutinizing some of these photos, the wooden "rub rail" as we called it was more like 12" X 12" beams....well, maybe some of it was RR ties.

As you can see in this first photo, Bill Kruse driving the #41 Bolduc Tire car very systematically took out about 20 feet of wooden fence, around turn #2 along Northern Ave. Here it doesn't look like there was much of a rub rail, but you will see in some of the following 28 photos that there was a very heavy duty rub rail installed as early as 1953.

Here is a 1953 newspaper clipping on the problem. The problematic fence destruction at the CLE track never actually ended until the very last race was held here in 1966. Be sure to click on all the photos once or twice to get a full screen size rendition of all the photos.

In the picture to the right Louis Tocheri #19 did his share of fence destruction while the fans outside the barricade jumped for joy, as there was a huge gap in the fence where they could watch the whole nights events in full colour for FREE.

On the left you can really see how high the rub rail became early in the 1954 racing season, but it didn't deter #88 Albert Massaro from tearing out a few yards of the track's enclosure.

On a side note here, Rea's Esso Service was located in the exact spot as the large parking lot for the Spence Clinic building (Arthur Square). That's on the corner of Arthur and Mark's St.

Here, Mike Guzzi's #4 is sitting on top of some very large beams of wood....I can't imagine what it would be like to jump up on those rub rails. Hitting a tire on the infield of Riverview Raceway was a hard enough hit in the day.

Here Glen Kettering #37 and Fred Danis #22 mix it up on top of the rub rail as Tony Massaro #87 goes speeding by. You can also vividly see the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Coliseum building in the background to put this photo in perspective.

In this photo we have Jerry Whittaker #75 and a very rare photo of Tom Dow's black and white #2 car mixing it up coming out of turn 4 and heading towards the grandstand stretch.....again the beams here are quite large, but sort of protected some of the fence on the west side of the track.

Tony Massaro had wrecked quite a few vintage cars of the day and this one is no exception....when this car drove out onto the track, it still had its original hubcaps in place and the license plate as you can see here is still intact.....and....oh yes, 40 or 50 feet of fence was gone in this incident.

Barry Kettering is sitting on the side bar of his #47 "Bud's Thing" race car with a member of his pit crew bent over being sure that Barry was OK after removing over 70 feet of fence and sitting on top of the rub rail. The rest of the boys are wondering how to get it off the high wooden rub rail. On the back of Barry's car it reads "Bass Ackwards"....do you remember that saying? .....and on the top above the back window it says "Royal Triton Motor Oil".

Jim Manduca #73 had his share of fence removal as well. Read this post right to the end to see the best story yet with Jim involved. As you can see there is quite a bit of fence gone here and also the barbed wire didn't stop anyone from standing on top of the wire fence in the background, and the guys on their truck roof now have a direct view of the whole race track.

In this photo the #21 driver is unknown, the #12 car was the Deluxe Flower Shop deuce coupe driven by Cye Kehoe, and just about to rip through the fence and into what was known as the cattle barns on turn 1 on our half mile CLE track is non other than Ed Cusson's #13 car. The barns nicely curved along turn 1 and were a target for may jalopy in the day.

This is a great photo of John Stad's #6 car just inches away from being a river rat. The angle of the track was such that if you left the track between turn 3 and 4, this is where you would end up. Many jalopies met their demise on this corner. Interestingly in the background you can see the old CLE walking bridge that would lead to the parking lot and the midway during fair week. Below is Barry Ketterings cute little '32 Ford 5W coupe "Bud's Thing" with its nose into the river at a night time race meet at about the same spot as John Stad's car above......but Barry had some help from a higher source and had it proudly displayed on the back bumper of his little coupe....It stated "In God We Trust".... It must have helped because his little #47 never did go all the way in....they were able to get it out of the river and into the next race.

Here is #88 Albert Massaro eyeing up the front of his car wondering if they will ever be able to recover it from the outside of the wooden stockade. This was actually an earlier photo when there was little or no rub rail to keep you inside the track. It was truly amazing how many people watched from truck boxes and standing atop the barbed wire...If everyone was inside in the grandstand, they could probably have topped the 6000 fan mark.

Another picture showing the CLE Coliseum in the background. This is #35 car driven by Don Deacon sitting high and dry atop the famed rub rail we talked about so much on this post. Check out the size of that front bumper protecting the fragile radiator.

Yet another 50 feet of fence down.....truly I would have hated to be the carpenter or even one of a crew of carpenters to have to repair this fence every single week. This is the #60 car driven by Don Marsh......and as we know, so many of these wonderful little pieces of hot rod material were destroyed. The '32 Ford coupe was and still is today the most quintessential piece of hot rod material ever made by any manufacturer. Click twice to enlarge all photos.

Read the story above and then click here on the two photos mentioned above...click on either once or twice to enlarge them for a screen size view.

Now look at this unidentified jalopy literally hopping over the rub rail and wiping out another 50 feet of fence.... "How did I do that?" he said, and "Geez, I parked my vehicle right there before the races too.....Oh Nooo."

Here again and below is Jim Manduca in his #73 Ford coupe after about a 200 foot new gap in the CLE fence.....The ecstatic fans on the other side of the fence can watch the race for free now and they won't even have to stand on the bus turnaround shelter. The scenery in the background is of course the bus terminal between Fort William and Port Arthur on Fort William Road....remember transferring buses between the twin cities there? The fair board is sure missing a ton of revenue here again.

#79 was Murray Simmons, and the next two photos of Murray's cars were basically taken at the same time but one from track side and one from the other side. You can see how dangerous the wooden posts would be splintering like this. One of the most serious accidents that happened at the CLE track was to Wes Inkster in about 1957. He lost an eye due to wood fragments and had many health issues later due to his accident.

Malcolm Galbraith is seen here on the right in his little #35 '32 Ford 3W coupe. It almost looks like the little jalopy had a mind of its own and just wanted to jump the rub rail and tear down a long length of fence. This again is along Northern Ave and a new home is being built there....obviously no complaints about the dirt and noise had yet been heard.

Here is the best photo of the post in my opinion. It is Jim Manduca again in the ditch as he just entered the #3 turn, and guess what.....yes you did, another 30 feet of fence is down....but scroll down and LOOK at the next photo for the detail to see what or who is in the tree that was narrowly missed by Jim.

Click on the clip to read it better.... Hope you enjoyed this post...and hope you're all having a great summer. Dave.

Don't forget to come by for a visit, say hello, look through some photos and memories, and learn how to navigate this website....I will be set up in the Coliseum building with my Hot Rod and displaying my Hot Rods and Jalopies blog this Saturday and Sunday....looking forward to seeing you... Cheers, Dave

Merry Christmas post #3. We had a little contest on my facebook page where we added the photo art below and asked friends to caption it. The impartial judges were my wife and my grand-daughter shown here in a festive spirit. The facebook acknowledgement and the winning caption are shown below. All the captions were all very funny and clever, and the judges said that it was very difficult to pick the winner....but as promised....here it is.
Tony Heinicke won and it is all posted here. Thanks to everyone who participated, and Merry Christmas. (What made this one win was the use of the word recreation instead of resuscitation). Great stuff Tony!!
Be sure to scroll down, click on all the photos here to enlarge them and enjoy a fairly lengthy Christmas post #3.

Look, Mommy fainted....Santa is giving her mouth
to mouth "recreation".

The Judges...

Here's another tongue in cheek Hot Rods and Jalopies phantom magazine cover. I thoroughly enjoy doing these and the email response has been great. As the Dr. Scholl's foot-happy ad shows here....you all must have Christmas Shopping feet by now....

One of my all time favourite photos in my archives is this one taken in the late 1960's and near the end of the fabulous downtown Fort William shopping days on the old Victoria Ave strip. I never get tired of seeing this photo taken on the corner of May and Victoria ave.

The next few photos are not local but they convey the Christmas and winter feeling and could have been taken "anywhere in North America". Included in this picture is a 1955 Ford in the foreground followed by a 1953 Chevy Belair, followed by a '51 Chevrolet. They are all likely sitting in "Hensler's Bar and Grill". Also in those days it didn't much matter what side of the street you parked on.

The three cars....well...former cars with snowmobile type conversion kits from the 1930s are as follows. Left to right are a 1928 Chevrolet landau coupe, a 1928/29 Ford Model "A" roadster pickup, and finally a 1930/31 Ford Model "A" closed car (sedan). A very nice photo from theoldmotor.com.

This is your typical used car salesman at Howard Ford working just prior to the Christmas holidays, trying to get the last few cars sold before the freezing cold winter ahead.

Come out to your Dominion Tire Warehouse in the late 1930s on Park Street in Port Arthur Ont. to get your Dodge radiator protected with Shell products supplied by them......note.... It says "No Charge".

A very wintry seasonal theatre picture which again could have been taken anywhere in North America, but was actually taken the evening of the huge Blizzard in New York City from December 1947.

In the picture are many marquis famous names from 1947....look at the photo then scroll down for related photos and stories.

Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton (December 15, 1911 – August 25, 1979) was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led an innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was active as an educator. Thanks to Wikipedia.

June Christy (November 20, 1925 – June 21, 1990), born Shirley Luster, was an American singer, known for her work in the cool jazz genre and for her silky smooth vocals. Her success as a singer began with The Stan Kenton Orchestra. She pursued a solo career from 1954 and is best known for her debut album Something Cool. After her death, she was hailed as "one of the finest and most neglected singers of her time." Another Wikipedia thank you.

Vic Damone (born Vito Rocco Farinola; June 12, 1928) is an American singer, songwriter, actor, radio and television presenter and entertainer, of Italian descent, best known for his song's, including number #1 hit You're Breaking my Heart and My Heart Cries for You (number #4) and On the Street Where You Live (Number #4 ) from My Fair Lady. Wikipedia...

On the Theatre Marquis this film was playing as well "Where There's Life" with Bob Hope, Signe Hasso and William Bendix. It was a 1947 film about "The American son of an Eastern European monarch wounded in an assassination attempt becomes a target for a terrorist organization". Geez...sounds like something that could easily fit into a "today" story.

In the large B&W photo above you can see the ad for the "FADA" radio...and here's one to see up close. These old Bakelite radios demand huge dollars in today's antique market.

Two typical winter photographs...the first from the same storm mentioned above...the December 1947 New York City blizzard. It's funny how they make a big deal about 15-20 inch snowstorms when we here in Canada experience this quite often and sluff it off as "just being winter". I'm not too sure where the 1940 Ford trucks and snowblower are, but it was a very typical scene in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario.

Christmas Comic Books were always found in my Christmas morning stocking when I was a kid...some of them below, especially the super hero ones. Some are worth thousands of dollars in the comic book market today. Click on both of these collages to have a better look. Do you have any still lying around in your attic??

Seeing a huge model railroad layout in a store window or inside was another typical pre Christmas sales pitch. Here in Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario, the layouts would have been seen in Chapples Basement, Bryan's Limited on Victoria Ave., Eatons in Fort William and Port Arthur, and many other larger department stores.

Kresge's (later to become K-Mart) and F. W. Woolworth were places your parents(or Santa) would purchase Christmas presents. The word "TOYLAND" or just waiting for the Simpson's Sears or Eaton's Christmas catalogs would excite any kid to start writing his letter to Santa.

"Galaxy" was an odd Science Fiction magazine of the day. I don't think I ever purchased this as a kid, however this cover in 1960 was already showing signs of the times when Santa may actually be out of business due to to high tech computer generated Santa Robots.

....and finally....we mustn't forget the popular, important and very significant Christmas Cookie.....as in the day, without a wood cook stove at your disposal....you would have to rely on the local Kam Power Generating Plant at Kakabeka Falls to power up your new General Electric range and oven....then lovingly bake them and leave them out with a glass of Dairybest milk for Santa Claus......Oh for the day. Merry Christmas, thanks for watching...check back with us often, and use us for research. Dave and family at HR&J.....

Read the poster below and all of this post to see 4 generations of racing photos. Be sure to free up the time to attend this historic event being held at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Coliseum in your home town, Thunder Bay.

We start off with a couple of original Murillo Speedway photos from 1950.

In these two photos you can see the huge Murillo grandstand packed with people. The fan base in Fort William, Port Arthur and Murillo Ontario was always very supportive. Click on each picture to enlarge them for more detail.

#77 was Clyde Ditmars of Kakabeka and #37 was Glen Kettering

The 00 Snitch Special Plymouth was none other than Barry Kettering

Next came the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition and the Lakehead Stock Car Club in 1952

Then came the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition track in 1952 to the delight of local race fans who did have to or want to travel out to Murillo in the day. This famous logo became the benchmark iconic sign of The Lakehead Stock Car Club, which appeared on numerous programs and racing jackets in the 1950's and 1960's


The Massaro Brothers Tony 87 and Albert 88..photo circa 1953/4

The Canadian Lakehead Exhibition half mile race track. Most of the homes and businesses in the area are still there. You can still see the Memorial Ave trees, and in this particular picture, the rides at the CLE across the river.

This photo of the track was taken from the May Street side....look close and you can see the old Arch between Fort William and Port Arthur, and this one was also during fair week. The course of the river was changed over time due to the construction of the new McIntyre flood-way.

In 1967 came a new state of the art track built by the combined efforts of The Northern Ontario Timing Association and E. J. Bernosky

A 3/8 mile oval which was the pride of our organization...a perfect location.

Here's high flying Merv Dove, former Lakehead Stock Car Club driver and Riverview flagman, flagging Stan Anderson to a Victory. Merv claims to this day that he can still jump that high.

Yours truly picking up a checkered flag in 1968....the photo on the right is #98 Al Brescia and #17 Lonal Lajoie. You vintage Sprint car guys have to fill me in as to who the driver below of #2 was...(was it Jerry Richert?...He drove the #2 Super Mod for a few years). The last photo of the group is one of the early fall Championship races at Riverview.

Finally, we have Mosquito Speedway who now hosts a fan filled fall classic early each fall.

You can see by the number of cars and fans at Mosquito Speedway that the need for speed has not slowed down at all in our home town of Thunder Bay....so be sure to come out and support this great two day event, meet some of your old friends and meet some of the great guys that started it all back at Murillo and the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition race track.

Finally....please note that Jeff Caldwell will have his final run of hats from Murillo, CLE and Riverview available for sale at the event....don't miss out.

Thank You

Don't miss this historic two day event in your home town Friday evening October 13th THIS WEEK at the CLE Coliseum from 6:30pm until 11:00pm....Saturday the second day is the self guided tours to Russ Wanzuk's from 10:00am til 12:00noon and to the Duke Hunt Museum's racing collection from 1:30pm to 4:30pm. MAPS will be available at the Coliseum for day 2.

Prizes from Sponsors will be given away at the Coliseum and at the Duke Hunt museum.

Tickets are available for from the CLE office on Northern Ave., from Dave Cano, Lil Stieh, Ron Hebert or anyone else on the committee, or at the door. $5.00

In case you haven't read the article in this past Sunday's Chronicle Journal...here is a copy. Click on Each of the images TWICE to enlarge to screen size to read.

DON'T MISS OUT!

Lyn McIntosh - A Celebration of a life well lived.......

Chubby Self Portraits, International Dirt at the CLE, a Wringer Washer and some local History all from Fort William and Port Arthur Ontario....

Happy Easter Memories from back in the day when we lived in Fort William and Port Arthur.....

Some CLE Memories in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur (Thunder Bay)....

Jack's Switch Engine and preserving vintage tin in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario.

Happy Halloween 2016 - The Best of HR&J and more.....

COSLETT MACHINERY & EQUIPMENT COMPANY - local success story in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur....

Christmas Memories and a bit of Then and Now from our Home Towns of Fort William and Port Arthur.....

Christmas Memories part 2 and other Winter Events from our home towns of FORT WILLIAM & PORT ARTHUR, Ont....

Christmas and Other Winter Memories mainly from Our Home Towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ont. Last one for 2016....

Happy New Year 2017...starts with an 80 year old Greeting....and ends with a Shift.

Need for Preservation....Some Favourites, and Some Then and Now Pictures from our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario....

Old Cars, A Great Find, Go Karts, and Some Surprises in Our Home Towns of Fort William and Port Arthur

The Fort William Times Journal.....and we deliver...Personal note at the end.

Broad Perspectives......Then's, Now's and More History From Our Home Towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario....

The Battle with the Fence at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Race Track in the 1950's in our home towns of Fort William and Port Arthur, Ontario...

Thunder at the Bay...you won't be disappointed....

2015 Merry Christmas Post #3 ... My FB Caption Winner plus Christmas & Winter Tidbits from Near and Far.....

"WHEN THERE WAS THUNDER" an historic event in your home town...don't miss it.....

Final Notice - October 13th, this Friday "When There Was Thunder" in your home town.