The historic heart of Port Dalhousie
This week’s old photo presents an early 20th century postcard view of the east side of Lock Street, the centre of Port Dalhousie’s central business district in those days.
Perhaps the most eye-catching element of the photos is the horse-drawn wagon that is proceeding slowly down the hill toward us from the direction of Main Street, through the muddy, unpaved streets that still predominated then. In the distance, at the very top of the hill, stood the Customs House, built by the government in 1845 overlooking Lakeside Park.
Looking left to right, the first of the three buildings filling the right side of the image was the Austin House hotel, a three storey brick structure built in the late 1890s by John and Patrick Harrigan, replacing the smaller McNulty House hotel which had occupied part of that site since the early 1870s.
Purchased in 1977 by Art Smith, the building was then re-named the Lakeside Hotel, reflecting the name of nearby Lakeside Park. The building long ago ceased to be a hotel. Most recently the My Cottage Bar operated from those premises, but for the past five years or so everything in the area has been sort of frozen in place as the struggle over the planned condominium has played itself out.
Next to the Austin House/Lakeside hotel stands the Stanton Building, a simple wood frame building with gable end facing the street and an ornate wooden verandah across the front of the second floor. It was erected by village postmaster John Stanton in the mid-1890s. At the time the old photo was taken it was a combination grocery store and local post office, with residential space on the second floor. Its most recent occupants were an Indian restaurant and a craft guild and cooperative.
The third building, closest to the photographer, disappeared almost 50 years ago, which itself makes it of some interest – “What was in that open space near Hogan’s Alley?”
The building that once stood there dated back to the early 1880s and was commonly known as the Denton Building. It had commercial space on the first floor and a meeting hall on the top floor. The commercial space was occupied initially by Denton’s, a merchant tailor and men’s furnisher, while starting in 1885 the second floor was rented by the local Masonic lodge, Seymour Lodge No. 277. In 1925 the Lodge purchased the entire building, and in the same year Erskine’s drug store began renting the first floor.
In 1947 the Lodge sold the old building at 10 Lock Street and started planning its own more modern headquarters, which opened in 1954 on Main Street at the corner of Gertrude. The old Lock Street building, standing vacant since the late 1960s, was finally demolished in 1972-73.