Barrie Plaza

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Hello Again Explorers,

Another shot, right in the nostalgia for denizens and visitors to Barrie, Ontario.  We are looking at the Barrie Shopping Plaza, Barrie's first major retail centre near the intersection of Wellington and Anne Street and in full view of Highway 400.  As malls simply did not exist in the early 1960's, shoppers hit individual stores along Dunlop Street downtown, or other stand-alone stores.  Across town on Blake Street, Dominion Plaza jostled to win customers.

When we moved to Barrie, that iconic 'three-disk' kiosk was still in place, but perhaps looking fatigued (like falling over sort of fatigued).  At this time, this kiosk typically did a brisk trade selling cigarettes.
 

The big draw (for us anyways) was to rent a (VHS / Beta) videos from Bandito video.  This store closed back in 2015.

The LCBO was the old draconian style of operation when the booze was not out in the open and you had to fill out a form (like Consumer's Distributing) and submit it to a clerk.  The government also wanted to keep track of how much you consumed as well.  Thankfully, we are not that old to remember this operation.  Anywhoos, here is the list of early tenants at the Barrie (Wellington) Plaza.

L. C. B. O.
Gall's Barber Shop
Paramount Cleaner
Rob-Ray Restaurant
Venus Coiffures (what the hell is a covfefe?)
Royal Bank of Canada
Quick-Clean Coin Wash
Stephens Store for Men and Boys
Ernies Department Stores
Bata Shoe Store
Allandale Hardware
The Fashion House
Plaza Drugs
Coward Clothes
Woolworth’s  (w00t!)
Kerns Jewelry
Power Supermarkets
Ontario Motor League 

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Gray Coach Barrie

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Happy Monday Urban Explorers,

We have yet another post on the history of Barrie, Ontario and if you have a thingy for public infrastructure or more specifically, transportation, then this article may be of interest to you as we will be looking at the history of of the Gray Coach Lines in Barrie.

First up, a backgrounder.  Gray Coach was founded in 1927 by the Toronto Transportation Commission with a number of suburban routes and rapidly expanded outwards from the Greater Toronto Area with several acquisitions.  By 1930, Gray Coach was a leader in Southern Ontario's city-to-city transportation.   In the early days the buses were more of a tall station wagon than what we would recognise as a bus.  The Gray Coach fleet line-up consisted of an evolution of early wagon, to a cab-over-engine design to the iconic Aerocoach design as you may see in these advertisements for Gray Coach from September, 1936 (top) to March, 1948 (bottom) as the bus company moved fleet assets from White Motor Company, Packard, Yellow Coach and Aerocoach.   One can also see the progression here of the popularity in coach travel from the older 12-seaters to a newer more modern design to accommodate 24 or more passengers.

Your keen eyes will likely note that the first older advert places the Gray Coach office at Dunlop and Mulcaster streets (yep - right at the old Clarkson Hotel), while the later advert provides the terminal at #73 Collier Street.

We should probably talk about location, location, location.

As you have guessed, in the 1930's the bus 'terminal' was just a arrival / departure point at the Clarkson with a small desk just inside where the ticket agent was stationed.  Before the Clarkson, Gray Coach operated from the Wellington Hotel in 1929 until July 1930.  There were no formal agents in the employ of Gray Coach during the early years, but that all changed in August 1942 with a new Agent and a proper modern bus terminal on Collier Street.  The new agent was James Vincent Byrne, or JV as most had called him, and the new location was borne out of necessity, mostly because of the war effort.  Here's an image from the TTC's 1942 'Coupler', one of the oldest (and continuous) internal newsletters in Canada.

Since 1938, Gray Coach had been providing service to nearby Canadian Forces Base Borden and with the declaration of war in 1939, this service was even more needed.  In May, 1942, Canadian Federal Department of Munitions and Supply and the Town of Barrie granted permit for the construction of the new bus terminal on the site of the former W.F. Stone building on the south side of Collier Street, adjacent to the (old) Fire Hall.  The facilities included a waiting room, ticket / agent office and a lunch bar.

 

'Before & After'

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'Before and After' note the old firehall to left of terminal - rather a sad shame that was torn down.  :(

The Gray Coach bus terminal remained at the Collier Street location until September 1956 when it moved to #15 Maple Avenue.  One of the foremost reasons for this was simply the lack of space for all the buses that needed to park at the terminal.  If you had to pick someone up or drop someone off, there was simply no getting close to the front door and you had to try your luck across the street at the garage (where the present City Hall is now).

Bottom right of photo is the old Market Hall converted for use as municipal offices.

The new-new bus terminal on Maple featured a waiting room, black marble entrance, 3 awesome retro 'U'-shaped restaurant counters, offices, full garage, and six roomy boarding platforms.  The only thing 'old' at the new Maple Avenue location was JV Byrne, who remained the Coach Agent.

The 15 Maple Avenue terminal was closed, demolished and moved to across the street to 24 Maple Avenue in 1991, where it remains today.  The new terminal houses GO Transit, Greyhound Canada, Ontario Northland and Barrie Transit.

Many thanks to the Gray Coach Lines Facebook page for collecting and maintaining a wonderful collection of transit and local history on this page -

https://www.facebook.com/GrayCoachLines

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Barrie Gas Works

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Happy Sunday Urban Explorers

Here is another post for Barrie history buffs.  Specifically, we present two images, taken in approximately 1923-1924 on some street work in downtown Barrie - 

 

Elizabeth Street (now Dunlop Street West) looking East towards Five-Points. There are still a good number of structures in the older photograph which still stands.  Here is a quick round-up of some businesses visible in the old pic -

Of note - the Capitol Theatre, which at the time of the photograph is only about a year or two old.  Continuing along the south side of Elizabeth is the optometrist O. R. Rusk (newspaper advertisement clipped from a latter date after the street re-naming), P. C. Lloyd, Funeral Director and then the G. G. Moore Garage (tires, car parts and petroleum fuel).

On the north side of Elizabeth we can see Bryson's Ice Cream shop and then the Wellington Hotel (burnt down - see our post here).  In the far background at the five-points intersection is the Sterling Bank of Canada where Sam the Record Man was last before it too, burnt down.

 
Here is another image of the pipe laying gang on Bayfield Street looking north to the Simcoe Hotel, also taken during 1923 / 1924 during the pipe laying construction downtown.

Today's street-scape is nearly unrecognizable with the Maddy Centre occupying the south-west corner but the Simcoe still in its place.

These two old images were purported to be of watermain installation from the waterworks pumping station foremerly located at the base of Mary Street, but we fairly certain these are gas lines instead.  Water mains would have been a single line of 6 to 8 inch ductile or cast iron pipe laid along the street but these smaller diameter pipes are racked up to two racks of four.  One theory is that these pipes may have carried steam, but our best guess is that these were gas lines being installed from the Coal Gasification Plant formerly located on Dunlop Street near Louisa, currently undeveloped due to significant soil contamination, which is still being remediated.  There were two steel holding tanks at this site capable of holding 96,000 cubic feet of coal gas and a railroad spur to deliver the coal.

The Barrie Gas Company provided gas for lighting, cooking, heating and power in Barrie, Ontario, between 1878 and 1938.  At the plant, coal was converted to make coal gas, which was piped to customers to burn for illumination, heating, and cooking.  The Barrie gas works operated from about 1878 to about 1939.  The City took over the gas works to make it a public utility approximately 1928.  The main reason for its decline (other than the process being 'messy' and producing hazardous waste) was most consumers favouring electric for lighting and cooking.

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COPACO Barrie

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Hello again Explorers,

Yes, we know it has been since July of 2012 since I last posted, but we got busy with other things, but want to tell you that we never hung up our flashlight and camera.  One reason for our absence from the interwebs was there was a time when we did explore and post about a location, scrappers, vandals, and arsonists would use this blog like a hot sheet, which sucks lemons, as we want either a full preservation of a building, or a more natural (non-human) deterioration of it so we can photograph it.  Recently we've been keeping our proper explorations under our hats and not sharing (even on the forums).  We have been a bit more active in the local Facebook Groups 'If you grew up in Barrie' and 'Old Barrie', where 'Phil Coleman' is ubiquitous, (and irritating).  So, Allison C. poked us about supporting the soon-to-com Barrie Archive and scolded us for not posting to the UrbEx Barrie blog . . . here's yer damn post Allison.  :)

Anywhoos, lets get on with today's post - the former First Co-Operative Packers of Ontario (or COPACO) located right here in Barrie.  More specifically, located at the corner of Innisfil Street and Jacobs Terrace, which we believe was at one point in time called Baldwin Street. 

The Plant in 1953

 The Plant in 1931

Formal opening ceremony on Thursday 21 May 1931 attended by 5,000 people and included a number of dignitaries such as Ontario Premier George Henry, and Mr. Kennedy, Ontario Ministry for Agriculture, and presidents of other well-known companies and banks of the day (think the stuffy old white dudes from Simpsons, Eatons, Loblaws, Dominion, London Life, etc.).

The original 1931 structure was two-stories (130' x 82') with a high basement (where they cured meats) and adjacent was the single-storey structure (52' x 85') where the livestock pens where.  Hogs (mostly), cattle, sheep and poultry arrived by truck or by train (train tracks are still here) to be processed.  Imagine if you will, the smell (and the piggy screams) from this place.

COPACO was incorporated in 1929 and by 1965 the co-op represented just over 1,600 livestock producers in Simcoe and surrounding counties and boasted an annual sales volume of approx. $10 Million (which was no small amount in '65).

We have not yet been able to pin down a date of when the last hog took a trip through this abattoir, nor of any subsequent property owners - but - we do know that the Barrie Antiques Centre now occupies a large footprint within the old structure.  

As for doing an UrbEx thingy and sticking our camera in forgotten places, we are definitely not dicks and respect the business owner.  We would love to be invited to explore the basement and other dusty corners but for now, we recommend you take a stroll through this massive and very kewl antique shop.

 Advert in the local paper from 1937.

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Steele's China

Steele's China Shop, located on the corner of Collier and Bayfield streets, was built in 1884 as a carriage shop. It is now behind scaffolding; the city issued a demolition permit two weeks ago and chances may be slim to have this building designated as historically significant by Heritage Barrie.

























Steele's China Shop, located on the corner of Collier and Bayfield streets dates back to 1873 when two Barrie residents, James Barr and William Henry, started a company making wooden parts for carriages. By 1881 they had built a two-storey blacksmith shop on Bayfield Street, and just two years later began construction of a three-storey commercial building on the corner of Bayfield and Collier streets.













When completed in 1884, this polychromatic brick building precisely fit the unusually angled corner and was equipped with the most modern carriage-making technology of the time. Its first floor was a showroom and had an office, while the second was where painting and varnishing took place. This was reached by a special elevator that was large enough to hold a wagon or carriage. The third floor contained the trim shop and storage. It was accessible from the second floor of the blacksmith shop built behind 2 Collier St.


Harris Steele, a long-time downtown Barrie businessman, died in December of 2007 at age 76. He was the owner of Steele’s China and Gift Shop, after coming to Barrie in the late 1940s from Newfoundland. His parents, Samuel and Sybil Steele, set up the fine china shop at 2 Collier St., and Harris got into the business right out of Barrie Central Collegiate. Besides his passion for fine china, Steele was a sailor, very involved in the Barrie Yacht Club, the Grey and Simcoe Foresters and with the Rotary Club of Barrie. Steele had a quadruple bypass in early December of 2007 and was on the road to recovery, before suffering a massive stroke in his sleep on Dec. 14. He died two days later in Orillia’s Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, surrounded by family and friends.

Barrie Arena Demo

At 74 years old, it really did not come as much of a surprise that the Barrie Arena (aka Dunlop Arena) had its days numbered. Back in March when demolition plans were being discussed, I had provided a bit of history on this old building. Today, I took a look at the demolition site.

For a great article on this buildings history, check out the Thursday Sepember 4th Barrie Advance by local historian Andrew Hind. As Andrew did all the leg work here, I will just highlight a few of the interesting tid-bits.










In 1934, William Wright (founder of today's Globe & Mail) provided the lion's share of the money to fund the construction of the Dunlop Arena which was of course no small feat considering that the country was in the depths of a major recession.













The Barrie Arena, used natural ice for the first decade of operation when it was proposed that an artificial ice system be installed. As this was an expensive venture as well, City council placed the decision on the municipal ballot. By September 1945, municipal pride had won and the artificial ice system was installed.

The 3,000 seat facility served its community well over the years. It is not mortar between those bricks, its memories.

:-(

Doors Open Barrie

Through Doors Open Ontario 2008, Ontario Heritage Trust and the City of Barrie, some of Barrie's most intriguing and charming heritage sites will be open to the public for tour. The very first Doors Open Barrie 2008 event is to take place Sunday, September 28, 2008. Tourists in this province have been enjoying Doors Open events since 2000. In France, the curious have had La Journée Portes Ouvertes since 1984.

For more information, Contact Tourism Barrie.
Telephone: 1-800-668-9100 or 705-739-9444
E-mail: info@doorsopenbarrie.ca
Website: www.doorsopenbarrie.ca

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Some of the event sites this year . . .

Southshore Centre
205 Lakeshore Drive - 10:00am to 4:00pm





Barrie Arboretum
Sunnidale Park, corner of Sunnidale and Cundles Roads - 10:00am to 4:00pm

Foresters Museum
36 Mulcaster Street - 10:00am to 4:00pm









Harbour View Inn (Forsythe House)
1 Berczy Street - 10:00am to 4:00pm

MacLaren Art Centre (formerly the Library)
37 Mulcaster Street - 12:00pm to 4:00pm








Meridian Planning Consultants Inc. (Peplar House)
113 Collier Street - 10:00am to 4:00pm

The Robert Simpson Brewing Company
( B E E R ! ! )
107 Dunlop Street East - 10:00am to 4:00pm



St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church
47 Owen Street - 12:00pm to 4:00pm

Simcoe County Museum
1151 Highway 26 West - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

Trinity Anglican Church
24 Collier Street - 10:00 am to 4:00 pm

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I would also recommend taking part in one of three walking tours being arranged. One may register for a tour HERE .

Downtown Barrie Historic Walking Tour
Sunday, September 28 - 4:00 pm
Departing from Memorial Square (65 Dunlop Street East)

Barrie Union Cemetery Historic Walking Tour
Sunday, September 28 - 11:00 am & 2:00 pm
Meet at the Barrie Union Cemetery - 338 Sunnidale Road (Cundles Road West & Anne Street).

Barrie Waterfront Historic Walking Tour
Sunday, September 28 - 11:00 am & 2:00 pm
Meet at the Southshore Centre - 205 Lakeshore Drive