September 2024 The southern Ontario city of Barrie has never been known as an automobile manufacturing city, unlike Detroit or Oshawa, but it was in Barrie that the short-lived Bell Motor Cars Company located on of their assembly plants. Bell Motor Cars Company was an automobile company, based in York, Pennsylvania, that operated from 1915-1922. Bell …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/from-agricultural-to-industrialism-the-demise-of-barrie-bell-and-the-barrie-carriage-company/
September 2024 Prior to the automobile, and more so before improved roadways, the New York, Ontario and Western Railway (NYO&W) was the principle way to get to the Catskills. The Catskills resort and Bungalow boom, starting in the 1930s was made possible in a great way by the railways. The NYO&W was a regional railroad …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/ghosts-of-hurleyville-the-remains-of-the-nyow-railway-in-the-catskills/
September 2024 Arch bridges have been used for several thousands of years, going back to the Roman Empire. While true arches were known by Etruscans and ancient Greeks prior to their use by the Romans, it was the latter who realized their usefulness for bridge construction. Over the centuries, arch bridges have been built out …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/sullivan-countys-historic-bridges-the-stone-arch-bridge-in-kenoza/
September 2024 In a rural area of Niagara Falls, Ontario, not far from the roar of water rushing over the iconic natural wonder, is a grave dedicated to a young pioneer woman who died not long after arriving in what was then Upper Canada, over two hundred years ago. Her grave is not hard to …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/a-lone-grave-in-niagaras-countryside-the-sad-story-of-mary-misoner/
September 2024 Derek Smalls: “Can I raise a practical question at this point? Are we going to do Stonehenge tomorrow?” David St Hubbins: “No, we’re not gonna fucking do Stonehenge!” Stonehenge may be a song by the great British Heavy Metal band Spinal Tap, but it’s also prehistoric megalithic structure, found on the the Salisbury …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/stonehenge-the-iconic-monument-on-the-salisbury-plain/
September 2024 There are many ghost towns and vanished villages across Canada and the world. Some died off when the local industry that sustained them dries up. Some towns are simply absorbed into the growing communities around them. The former Village of Kempenfelt, now a part of the southern Ontario City of Barrie, is just …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/lost-villages-of-simcoe-county-kempenfelt-village/
August 2024 The Peterborough Musicfest just finished it’s 37th year as an outdoor summer concert series, held on Wednesday and Saturday nights in Del Crary Park, along the shore of Little Lake. Ell headlined the 10 August show, the third last show of the summer series that included a wide variety of original artists and …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/musical-summer-nights-in-peterborough/
August 2024 An enthusiastic crowd gathered in a parkette in the Hamlet of Woodridge, New York, on 25 August, for the dedication of a historical marker commemorating the Borscht Belt. This was the ninth in a series of historical marker dedications, and the last one for 2024, that have taken place in this historic part …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/borscht-belt-historical-marker-project-dedicates-more-markers-in-2024/
August 2024 Like many towns that go back to the days of Upper Canada, Lindsay, Ontario, has a long history with railways that crisscross the country and played a major role in settlement and growth of Canada. The first railway to arrive in Lindsay was the Port Hope, Lindsay & Beaverton Railway (PHL&B), originally chartered …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/railway-heritage-display-celebrates-the-railroad-era-in-lindsay/
August 2024 It’s considered a historic landmark, one that provides a great view of the surrounding terrain around Butternut Creek, a little to the west of Peterborough, Ontario. Built for the Midland Railway of Canada, a historic railway that ran from Port Hope, on Lake Ontario, to Midland, on Georgian Bay, as the “missing link” …
Permanent link to this article: https://militarybruce.com/from-locomotives-to-rail-trail-historic-doubes-trestle-bridge-a-relic-from-the-railroad-era/
