The shop that moved
&TODAY YESTERDAY
John A. Wills was born in Hamilton in 1886. In the early 1890s, his family moved to St. Catharines, where his father, William Wills, was employed as a draughtsman at the Welland Vale Manufacturing plant.
By 1898 the Wills family settled in a home at 17 Rolls Street, just above Niagara Street. The elder Mr. Wills died in 1908, and by 1911 son John was working as a pattern maker, producing wooden models used by local foundries in producing moulds for casting metal objects for St. Catharines industries.
The wood frame building in the accompanying old photo eventually became his place of business. It was constructed in two parts. The one storey, gable-roofed section on the right was constructed in 1916, while the flat roofed two storey section was a later addition, built in 1936.
But there was a problem with the building .. it was in the wrong place. By the late 1930 it was clear that the Rolls Street address where John Wills family lived and where the family business was conducted was right in the path of the proposed Queen Elizabeth Way highway — the building stood about where the Niagara Street off ramp of the eastbound QEW is today.
Well, ... there was no arguing with the QEW, so Mr. Wills and his business would have to move.
Rather than just pulling up stakes on Rolls Street, finding another building elsewhere in town to occupy, and letting his old pattern making shop be demolished, John Wills had his shop picked up and moved from Rolls Street to a new location, at the southwest corner of Niagara and Carlton streets.
Wills resumed business there and continued there until he died in March of 1964. New owners bought the business and continued operating it until 1971, but after that the Pattern Works building stood vacant for several years.
In 1976 it was purchased by the Rossi family with the intention of using it as a warehouse for their construction business, but they got to thinking that its high profile location, at that busy intersection, could be better used by reconditioning it, giving the two storey front section a fresh coat of paint and some eye-catching signage, and turning it into a restaurant.
So it was that in 1977 the former Wills Pattern Works building was reborn as Reggie’s Restaurant. But that lasted only until December 14, 1979, when it suffered a serious fire and never re-opened.
In the early 1980s the site was cleared and a couple of gas bars operated there for a decade or so, until the mid-1990s. Today that Carlton-Niagara corner is just a parking lot, showing no signs that John Wills’ Pattern Works was ever there.
Dennis Gannon is a member of the Historical Society of St. Catharines. He can be reached at gannond2002@yahoo.com