Built as a skating rink in 1882, this limestone building for years held a CPR depot. The fire occurred in May 1991.

14 May 2011

River Run Centre Site Held CPR Freight Depot

Kitchener Ontario - The River Run Centre for the performing arts has a pleasing location in downtown Guelph, above the west bank of the Speed River and beside a small park with a walkway that's part of the Trans-Canada Trail.
 
Last week's "mystery" photo shows the site at 35 Woolwich St. as it looked about 25 years ago, before the theatre opened in 1997 and before the 1991 blaze that gutted the big limestone building on the property that for decades served as a Canadian Pacific Railway freight depot. On the left you can see the 1914 Heffernan Street footbridge that crosses the Speed and remains in use today.
 
What's interesting about the freight depot is that it initially held an indoor skating rink.
 
It was built by a group of Guelph citizens who formed the Speed Skating Rink Co. More than 1,000 people turned out for a costume carnival held when the doors first opened on 15 Dec 1882.
 
But amazingly, the rink lasted just six years.
 
Guelph historian Ross W. Irwin describes in a short history of the building (available at the Guelph Public Library) how the creation of the city-owned Guelph Junction Railway led to the installation of railway tracks up the west side of the Speed, a condition imposed by the CPR which operated the railway for the city.
 
"This necessitated cutting through the rear portion of the rink, thereby lessening its value as such," Irwin writes. By 1888, the rink had been leased by the CPR and converted to a freight depot.
 
Gord Miller of Cambridge wrote by email to say he became familiar with the building when he worked as CPR's operations supervisor for the district and stopped by regularly.
 
It was a "fine old building," but also one with some secrets, he noted.
 
"Over the years many people entered this building unaware that a large population of bats also made their home there. They were mainly unseen during the day, but very evident in the dark hours."
 
Miller, who retired in 1986, also recalled that it became almost a ritual for CPR employees to sign their names on the walls of the building's upper level, a space seldom used by the railway. Over time there were many hundreds of signatures there, forming an informal historical record.
 
"Even I put my name up there," he said.
 
Terry Howard of Guelph phoned to say that he used to play beside the freight depot in the 1940s when he visited his grandparents, who lived just to the north along Woolwich Street.
 
"We used to go down there on a Sunday afternoon and we would sit on top of a caboose and pretend that we were on a trip somewhere. Sometimes we would go into the building, but they would chase us out. They didn't want us kids in there."
 
Doug Haennel of Kitchener grew up in Guelph and remembers the building well.
 
"As a Bishop Macdonell High School teenager in the late '60s, a number of us worked in this building for Canadian Pacific Express (a CPR courier and delivery service). We worked after school as porters, unloading the trucks."
 
Haennel said he would never have guessed by looking that the building had held a skating rink, but remembers asking questions at the time and learning a bit about its past.
 
"It was a fabulous old building. You would look up at the big wooden beams in the ceiling and think, this place was built to last."
 
The part-time job, with a 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. shift, paid well, but had some drawbacks. For one thing, there was no heating except in the office area, so it could get brutally cold on the loading dock during the winter months.
 
Haennel and his fellow workers had a change room of sorts in a dank basement space they nicknamed "the dungeon" and he remembers that one year they gave their girlfriends a quick tour of the place on the night of a school formal.
 
"They were not impressed," he said.
 
Dennis Reeve of Cambridge wrote to say he had a summer job at the CPR depot in 1975, loading railway boxcars with freight.
 
"During the summer months the freight consisted mainly of large metal gas station signs that had to be off loaded from transport trucks and reloaded onto box cars for delivery across Canada. It was hot and heavy work, but at the end of the day was rewarding."
 
After seeing last week's photo, Susan Schaefer of Kitchener wrote by email with an interesting story.
 
"I don't actually remember the building itself, or it's use, but it looked familiar to me so I looked back through my old photos. When shopping in downtown Guelph one day in May of 1991, we were drawn to thick clouds of black smoke and it was that particular building on fire.
 
"Luckily I had my camera and I got a number of excellent photos. It was all very exciting, particularly when the back wall came down all at once."
 
Schaefer sent along several photos she took of the blaze.
 
The 1991 fire put an end to suggestions that the proposed River Run Centre could incorporate part of the old skating rink. But parts of its thick walls were saved and used just south of the theatre to create a stone facade that today recalls the past use of the River Run Centre site.
 
Jon Fear.