The Skating Club of Toronto was founded in 1895 and incorporated in the winter of 1913-1914. In the early years, they had exclusive rights to use the Victoria Arena on Huron Street on Monday evenings and Friday afternoons. In 1921 they built their own skating rink at 568 Dupont Street. The archive photo below from 11/05/1921 shows the building as it neared completion.
The club originally allowed only 300 active members and 200 associate members. The 27th annual report was issued on April 12th, 1921 and showed membership at 515 members. The New Rink and Club House project had been fully funded and over $20,000 more had been raised than what was estimated to be needed to construct the new building. At that time the plans for the arena were at the architectural firm of Langley and Howland.
Beginning in 1912 the Toronto Skating Club held an annual winter carnival which was always a great success and had assisted in raising the funds for the new skating rink. It was estimated that the 1921 carnival had been responsible for an additional $50,000 worth of subscriptions for the funding of the project.
In 1956 the Toronto Skating Club amalgamated with the Toronto Cricket Club and the following year the Toronto Curling Club was included in the merger. The cricket club had begun around 1832 while the curling club started up in 1836. The new organization was known as the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club.
In 1957 the rink was converted into a members only Tennis Club which is known as The Queens Club. The facility originally operated a single court on the old ice surface. Adjacent properties were acquired and a second court was added in 1967 as a Centennial project.
This unmarked property used to have an historic plaque on the front corner but it was stolen a couple of years ago. The century-old building does not have any historical designation and the surrounding properties have come under redevelopment proposals in recent years. It stands just two buildings east of the original Model T Factory in the city.
Altona was founded in the early 1800s by Mennonites of Swiss-German descent who had emigrated from Pennsylvania. They named their community after Altona in Germany, a town which is now part of Hamburg, Germany. It remained a small farming community until 1850 when Abraham Reesor built the first saw and grist mills in the area. Abraham was the son of Peter Reesor who was one of the early pioneers in the GTA. A school was built in 1834 and the community seemed to peak around 1856 at about 256 people. By 1869 the census showed only 200 residents and by 1910 it was down to only 100 people. This was often the fate of hamlets that were bypassed by the railways. The image below shows the Reesor mill as pictured in the 1877 County Atlas.
A couple of churches, the school and a hotel complimented the general store and provided for the spiritual and physical needs of the residents. A Mennonite Meeting House was built in 1852 and is one of the few buildings left in the community.
Through the window the simple pews can be seen as well as the pulpit. There is no ornamentation in the church and no stained glass in the windows. The Mennonites met here until September 15, 1974, after which regular services ceased.
The oldest grave marker in the cemetery is dated to 1835 and precedes the building of the meeting house. The early members of the community are interred here, including the Reesors, Nighswander, Widemans, Hoovers and Stouffers.
When the Federal government decided to build a second international airport for the GTA, a large area of flat land in Pickering was chosen. Altona was seen to be just below an approach to one of the runways and flights were envisioned coming in over the town at about 300 feet above. The town was essentially expropriated, and all the property owners were bought out. This small Georgian Style Cottage has survived and is distinguished by its elaborate two-tone brick work.
We gave more details about the proposed airport in our previous post on Brougham and so we won’t go through all of that again here. Several of the homes in Altona are still occupied but if the airport ever gets off the ground they may well be demolished.
The story and a half home with a front gable and gothic pointed arch front window was perhaps the most common style of architecture in Ontario in the years leading up to Confederation. There are a couple of them still remaining in Altona, but for how long?
The house of William Rhoddick has been demolished but the barn and silo remain. It has been 50 years since the land was expropriated and current assessments suggest that there will never be an actual need for this airport to be built. It’s sad that the legacy of the people who cleared the land and worked so hard to make a living has been lost and soon may be completely forgotten. I wonder how they would feel if they could see what has happened to the fruit of their labours.
With so many of the buildings in the hamlet in a continuous state of disrepair there is an ongoing threat due to nature. The powers of wind, rain and snow are slowly demolishing several of the buildings that haven’t already been intentionally destroyed.
The community has become one of empty laneways that lead to former houses that were either torn down or fell victim to arson and vandalism. The Barkey House was built by one of the early pioneers who was also a Mennonite preacher who served at the meeting house. The home was eventually sold to the Mitchell family who owned it until it was expropriated in 1972. The house made the news in 2012 when it was discovered that someone had built a confinement room in the basement with the intention of kidnapping a woman and keeping her there. The home burned down a couple of weeks after the discovery in a fire which was deemed as suspicious.
Just up the road from Altona is a small family cemetery on the former Forsyth property which is the final resting place for many of the early members of that family. The Forsyth Family Cemetery has a small area at the rear where several of the earliest markers have been gathered together and laid in a horizontal cement cairn to preserve them.
The fate of the remaining buildings in Altona is very much “up in the air” as it depends on the eventual outcome of the Pickering Airport.
Hiking the GTA 