Making Square Nails at Morningstar Mill

Seeking Memories of Erie Beach

Former Fort Erie resident, Gord Bowes, is looking for your stories about the Erie Beach Amusement Park.

I had the chance to meet with Gord last week and he said that he plans to write a book about Erie Beach and is interested in talking with anyone who may have something to share. If you have photos, videos, memories or even just stories related to Erie Beach, please email him at eriebeachbook@gmail.com

Check out Gord’s blog at eriebeachbook.blogspot.com

Tragedy on the Ice Bridge

It was a bitterly cold February day in 1912. The Ice Bridge, at the bottom of the falls, was crowded with people, most of whom came to the falls on excursion trains.

Without any warning, the formation began to break up. “Red” Hill Sr., a local river man, shouted for everyone to head for the shore. Everyone, except Mr. and Mrs. Eldridge Stanton from Toronto and two men from Cleveland, Ignatius Roth and Burrel Heacock made it to shore. Hill was able to pull Roth off a floe and Heacock could have made it too, but he turned back to assist the Stantons.

Before the ice approached the two bridges over the Whirlpool Rapids, the floe broke into two pieces dividing Heacock from the Stantons. Ropes were sent down from the bridges, but did not make contact with the doomed trio.

People have not been permitted to go on the ice bridges of Niagara Falls since that tragic day.

The Large Homes of Niagara-On-The-Lake

Two tourists became impressed with the cleanliness and size of the homes lining the streets of Niagara-On-The-Lake

Protester Smashes Windows In Emergency

A 46-year-old female, frustrated with local government officials and the Ontario Health Care System, protested in front of the St. Catharines General Hospital yesterday while carrying a hand-made placard and baseball bat.

She entered the emergency department and began violently swinging a baseball bat in the triage area of the hospital. She was able to smash two glass windows and damage a computer processing unit before police intervened and arrested her. The total damage is estimated at approximately $3,000.00.

Charged with one count of mischief under $5,000.00 is *name removed upon request* of 5th Street in St.Catharines.

An Icy Plunge In Lake Erie

Catherine Daniel and John Fehrman plunge into the icy waters in Port Colborne. They braved the -5C air temperature to raise money for Centre Polyvalent des Aines Francophones in Port Colborne.

Welland Documentary Part 1

Also see: Part 2

Teenage Girl Dies In NOTL Crash

At approximately 8:40 p.m. yesterday, a single motor vehicle collision occurred on Lakeshore Road west of Niven Road in the Town of Niagara-On-The-Lake.

A 17 year-old female driver and a 19 year-old female passenger, both from Niagara-On-The-Lake, were traveling west on Lakeshore Road in a brown, 2000 Pontiac Grand-Prix. The driver lost control of her vehicle, crossed the centerline and left the roadway, striking a tree.

The female passenger was pronounced dead at the scene. Her name is being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin. The driver was airlifted to St.Micheal’s Hospital in Toronto with life threatening injuries.

This collision remains under investigation. Witnesses are asked to contact investigators at (905) 688-4111, extension 5500.

Factory Fire In Grimsby

Video footage of the factory blaze that happened a couple of weeks ago.

Tourist Trap or Just Business?

Whether you work in tourism or not, it is well known that many visitors are not happy with the price gouging in the tourist district. Returning visitors often have the same complaint but continue to be drawn in by the beauty of the falls. This has gone on for many years, but just how many? I did a little research and found some very interesting facts on the subject and I wanted to share some of it with you. Below is a snippet from the book The Second Greatest Disappointment by Karen Dubinsky. What do you think? Is Niagara Falls a tourist trap or is it just business?

Niagara was home to colourful characters and romantic stories, but its tourist industry, according to most visitors, left a lot to be desired. From almost the first time that Niagara was claimed for tourism, in the 1820s, travelers have expressed their disapproval with how the place was being run. By the 1830s visitors were sending out warnings. In 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville urged a friend to “hasten” to Niagara, because he didn’t “give the Americans ten years to establish a saw or flour mill at the base of the cataract.

Two long-standing complaints were that Niagara was being ruined and that a Niagara holiday was too expensive. Visiting in the 1850s, Isabella Bird resented the distractions of “parasitic guides, sandwich-eating visitors, vile museums, pagodas and tea-gardens,” and William Ferguson agreed that Terrapin Tower, the staircases to the base of the Falls, and “some twopenny-halfpenny museums, which all cluster about the edge of the falls, spoil the effect sadly.” In 1871 English visitor Henry Jones was astonished that the spectacle he had come so far to see was “choked in the horrible vulgar shops and booths and catchpenny artifices which have pushed and elbowed to within the very spray of the Falls, and ply their importunities in a shrill competition with its thunder.”

Another wrote, humorously, of the defilement by billboards: As you stood on the Table Rock, the finest point from which to view the Falls, a huge board, which you could not possibly evade, informed you all the time that Jennings liver pills were sure, quiet but searching. The fine trees which frame every lovely picture on Goat Island had been let out to a wretch who had painted on every trunk the startling fact that “gargling oil was good for a man and beast,” and the lovely rocks on Luna Island resounded with the cry that Love’s worm powder was never known to fail.
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