Stories or facts about your hometown* that you didn't know

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Mendalla

Mendalla

Happy headbanging ape!!
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So I was checking the wiki article on Victoria Day to confirm whether Newfoundland celebrated it (they don't really, only civil servants officially get a holiday) I discovered the existence of the Victoria steamboat disaster, an event here in London, Ontario in 1881 that I swear I had never heard of before. 182 dead, possibly higher, after an overcrowded paddlewheeler on the Thames tipped over. I was only vaguely aware that the Thames had once had paddlewheelers running on it, let alone that we had a disastrous capsizing of one. They ran between Waterworks Park in Byron (modern day Springbank Park) and downtown. The name of the disaster by the way, is from the name of the boat, though it is apparently also called the Victoria Day Disaster sometimes.

en.wikipedia.org

Victoria steamboat disaster - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

* = could be your current home, birthplace, or another place that you've called home
 
ninj said:
Queen Millie

Millicent Milroy Memorial in Cambridge | Atlas Obscura https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/millicent-milroy-memorial

I always found this fascinating. MT. View Cemetery was a favourite hangout of mine as a kid. On hot summer days, the mausoleum in particular was cool and inviting. There was a drinking fountain near the entrance which always had me wondering if it was dead people water.
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That's a cool story, really. One could get a good alt-history novel (or secret history novel) out of it. I see there is a play.
 
Mendalla said:
So I was checking the wiki article on Victoria Day to confirm whether Newfoundland celebrated it (they don't really, only civil servants officially get a holiday) I discovered the existence of the Victoria steamboat disaster, an event here in London, Ontario in 1881 that I swear I had never heard of before. 182 dead, possibly higher, after an overcrowded paddlewheeler on the Thames tipped over. I was only vaguely aware that the Thames had once had paddlewheelers running on it, let alone that we had a disastrous capsizing of one. They ran between Waterworks Park in Byron (modern day Springbank Park) and downtown. The name of the disaster by the way, is from the name of the boat, though it is apparently also called the Victoria Day Disaster sometimes.

en.wikipedia.org

Victoria steamboat disaster - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

* = could be your current home, birthplace, or another place that you've called home
Click to expand...
And I thought the holiday was named after her birthday….
So why do we not have a Halifax explosion holiday?
 
Not my hometown but the island where we had a family cottage. There were arrowheads discovered on the site way back when.

I discovered this by accident when reading about something related.
 
Mrs.Anteater said:
And I thought the holiday was named after her birthday….
So why do we not have a Halifax explosion holiday?
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We should
I remember larnin aboot that in elementary
(i like the Simpson's version of that; a ship full.of hot shorts exploded, and they all.washed to shore in Springfield, blessing everyone with colourful hotpants)
 
In "things I didn't know about someone else's hometown*, I discovered only yesterday that London has a craft brewery called Anderson Craft Ales, which makes some very nice strong IPAs in short cans.

Also, my hometown of Barrie is the home of the butter tart, a fact I only discovered in recent years, despite having made butter tarts for many decades (7 1/2 dozen for the last bake sale).
 
You can recommend to your beer drinking acquaintances. Nice hoppy--ness, some crisp citrus notes. Love the short cans, And there's a light IPA that the lager-preferring big guy quite liked.

To return to subject at hand, I have lived in Barrie my entire life and nothing would surprise me.
 
One London musical discovery that I made a couple years ago is the alt/groove metal band Kittie. It was started by two sisters from London, Morgan (guitar and vocals) and Mercedes (drums) Lander, in the 90s. They kind of went on hiatus for a while and came back in 2022 live, and finally released their first album in 13 years in 2024.
 
I spent most of my first 7 years in London.

I had a boy in my class who gave me the "most beautiful" pin for Christmas. His parents had a local jewelry store. We lived in Oakridge Acres. He lived on Hyde park Rd.

His name was Frankie Jensen.

When he was 9 he set off for school in February. Story was his zipper jammed, so he was late and the others went on ahead of him.

He was found the next spring along the banks of the Thames.


The Block Parent program was formed as a result of his death
 
JayneWonders said:
The Block Parent program was formed as a result of his death
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Wow. Sad that it happened that way but also shows the necessity. Mom had a Block Parent sign for a period in the 80s and maybe into the nineties (not sure since I moved out in 89).

CTV did a story last week on the Battle of Hungerford Hill (or Reservoir Hill as the site is known today). A skirmish in the War of 1812 that I had not heard of before. A Canadian militia company intercepted American Rangers who had been raiding Ingersoll and caught them in a surprise attack.
 
Mendalla said:
Wow. Sad that it happened that way but also shows the necessity. Mom had a Block Parent sign for a period in the 80s and maybe into the nineties (not sure since I moved out in 89).

CTV did a story last week on the Battle of Hungerford Hill (or Reservoir Hill as the site is known today). A skirmish in the War of 1812 that I had not heard of before. A Canadian militia company intercepted American Rangers who had been raiding Ingersoll and caught them in a surprise attack.
Click to expand...

Thus a stand against a merry Kahn ... a failing concept? temporal conceptions and thus radical going's on beyond the visible horizon ... future screw0-up included! We are declared imperfect because of grounding ...
 
Mendalla said:
CTV did a story last week on the Battle of Hungerford Hill (or Reservoir Hill as the site is known today). A skirmish in the War of 1812 that I had not heard of before. A Canadian militia company intercepted American Rangers who had been raiding Ingersoll and caught them in a surprise attack.
Click to expand...

The Laura Secord story. The Ontario folk band, Tanglefoot, wrote a song about it.

 
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