This week’s featured photograph appears to have been taken from within, or atop, the 160,000-bushel wooden grain elevator that stood along today’s Heritage Drive until its demolition in 1937 by a Toronto wrecking company.
The handwritten description in the photograph’s bottom left corner reads “Town dock etc. 1910”.
While conducting unrelated research at the Collingwood Public Library, a Collingwood Museum staff member happened upon the following notice about the dock:
“On [April 5, 1897], the Town of Collingwood’s Property Committee met and opened the tenders for the Town Wharf. Mr. Sandford H. Lindsay was the successful tenderer, his figure being $465.” - Enterprise Messenger, April 8, 1897.
Unfortunately, the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator doesn’t include years prior to 1914; however, in 1914, $465 would be the 2019 equivalent of $10,493.50.
The same wharf appears in the foreground of today’s photograph with three dredges owned and operated by the C.S. Boone Dredging and Construction Company – the Kingsford, C.S. Boone No. 12, and Wingfield.
Charles Simpson Boone was the founder and president of the C.S. Boone Dredging and Construction Company between 1898 and his death in 1922. He was also a founder of the Toronto Drydock Company Limited, of which he was president in 1917.
The Boone Company was instrumental in the dredging programme that opened up the waterways of the Great Lakes. Over a 30 year period, the C.S. Boone Dredging Company planned and executed the dredging of Collingwood’s harbour under contracts with the Government of Canada.
To learn more about the history and development of Collingwood’s harbourfront, visit the Collingwood Museum’s Gift Shop to pick up a copy of The History of Dredging Collingwood Harbour & Shipyard: 1898-1945 by local authors Greg McGroarty and Sandie Boone Goodchild.
If you have a story to share about today’s featured photograph, please contact museum staff at [email protected].
Huron Institute 147; Collingwood Museum Collection X974.351.1
Remember This is a weekly series of historic photographs submitted by the Collingwood Museum to CollingwoodToday.ca. These photographs were originally collected and documented by the Huron Institute in an historical catalogue entitled Huron Institute Paper and Records: Volume III. Much of Collingwood’s early history has been preserved due to the dedication and foresight of the early museum’s founders, namely its secretary-curator David Williams, upon its establishment in 1904.
