Waterloo Region Record

Four mystery photos revealed, four more to follow

RYCH MILLS rychmills@golden.net

The Mystery Photo Contest is over. Entries are closed and winners will be announced next week. Today — alternate views of the four May 29 photos. Next week, along with the winners’ names, the final four mysteries from June 5 will be cleared up. Consult your printed pages of the previous two Flash from the Pasts to compare or check therecord.ca.

The following relate to images from May 29 and today’s alternates.

1. It is 1944 and downtown Galt is the parade route for the Highland Light Infantry led by the Galt Kiltie Band. Hundreds of mainly local HLI soldiers had been in Britain since 1941, eventually becoming important cogs in D-Day. However, the HLI’s reserve battalion continued training in Galt and was regularly seen parading through the city.

Reader Mary Ann Clarke located the scene on Water Street North between Dickson and Main. The 1936 post office with its distinctive tower still sits on the corner of Dickson: just to its right, but long gone, is the Grand Theatre, today’s alternate image. Gordon Hamilton’s Grand photo appeared in a 1946 Galt booster booklet. Mary Ann recalls many happy Saturday afternoons at the Grand.

2. Older aerial photos can be brainteasers, especially if major features have disappeared. That’s the case with this mid-century Waterloo Trust calendar view of Doon, showing Willow Lake. Adam Ferrie was the reason Willow Lake existed. He dammed Schneider Creek in the 1830s to provide power for his grist mills and their tall stone ruins are visible dead centre. Long after the mills had shut down, the pond gained a name while becoming a popular swimming and boating spot. As the 1940 alternate photo by Albert Lee shows, the mill remains were quite substantial. Lee’s 1940 image is in the Waterloo Historical Society collection at Kitchener Public Library. Today the former lake bed is a large park and playground because in the mid-1950s a flood destroyed the dam and Willow Lake quickly drained. In 1981, the Grand River Conservation Authority deemed the mill ruins unsafe. However, it took several dynamite salvos and a heavy equipment attack (inset, Record photo from UW Special Collections) before the “dangerous” walls succumbed. Today, just a few remnants of the Ferrie mill remain. It is a local history site begging for a detailed interpretative plaque.

3. Dave Moore loaned the wonderful 1930s photo of a Depression boy sitting on one of the Janzen fountains at Rockway Gardens. When Rockway opened in 1933, two fountains were installed in honour of Henry Janzen (founder of Kitchener Horticultural Society) and his wife Elizabeth. Today’s alternate view, a 1940s postcard, looks south and shows a Janzen fountain with Rockway Drive homes in the background.

4. An airplane with photographer Garfield Schmidt aboard was over Waterloo’s Hazel Street around 1949. Dearborn Avenue is barely discernible at right and crosses King Street beside the Waterloo Cider Mill. Recently acquired trolley coaches running along King required a special turnaround site (upper left). Front-and-centre are the townhouses erected in the mid-1940s as part of the government’s wartime housing program for returning veterans. Schmidt’s photo is in the Waterloo Historical Society collection as well. For today’s alternate view, Waterloo photographer Robert Nicol was also flying high and it shows massive neighbourhood development by 1963. University Avenue, newly renamed from Dearborn, crosses the scene while Waterloo Lutheran University residences are seen at right. A decade further on, there was another renaming: after 1973, the initials WLU stood for Wilfrid Laurier University, from whose archives the Nicol photo came.

Next week, Flash from the Past identifies the final four Mystery Photos and reveals the contest winners.

LOCAL

en-ca

2021-06-12T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-12T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://waterloorecord.pressreader.com/article/281625308247307

Toronto Star Newspapers Limited