Welcome to Wayback Wednesday sponsored by Cavalcade Color Lab! Every week, we’ll be sharing a vintage photo and asking our readers to chime in with anything you can recall about the photo, other related memories, or even a funny caption. Have some vintage photos of your own? Send them to [email protected] and we may share them with our readers!
Scroll down to see last week’s photo.
This week, a throwback to days when the Empire Hotel was still standing. Can you guess the date? Do you have any Empire memories to share? (Click on the image above to see it full size.)
Wayback Wednesday is sponsored by Cavalcade Color Lab
Last week we shared this photo with you:
The lack of trees stumped a few of our readers, but David Speicher and Dave Johns correctly noted the location as the canal near its exit to Pen Lake. It comes from a 1910 postcard courtesy of the Toronto Public Library, Special Collections.
Thank you. That’s fun to hear.
I loved going into your Mom’s store. Bought lots of clothes there – always a lot of laughs – your Dad was a tease and liked to “stir the pot”.
Many moons ago I worked for a company that held the mortgage on the Empire Hotel. The owners at the time threw the keys back to the mortgage company and I, as the newbie, was sent to take possession. So…here’s a nice kid from Southern Italy living in Toronto and who had never been north of Highway 7 arriving in what at the time seemed to me a really backwoods place without a single espresso bar to be had. I recall the floor of the bar area covered with peanuts and the jukebox devoid of anything but country music, no Italian songs. There were a few permanent tenants who needed help to find new accommodation. I swore up and down to never return to Huntsville after the experience of being without espresso for a week. Imagine my dismay when my spouse said, 26 years ago, “we are moving to Huntsville”. Best thing we did for our family. Huntsville is a great town.
In 1949 my father opened his store in the Empire block. “Bob Ewing’s Better Men’s Wear”. In October 1950 my mother opened her store. “Vanity Fair”. I think some other stores at the time were Tink Kendrick Bait Shop, Beilhartz Shoes. 1949 would be the year the stores opened .
As with David Johns I recall Bakers Barber Shop on the corner … Where I got my first hair cut by Charlie Baker. I enjoyed all 3 generations of Bakers cutting my hair… Charlie, Rudy and Wayne. Sadly all gone now.
The Empire Hotel. Still really miss this building. My buddy Eric Bionda worked there for many years. Always nice to drop into Baker’s Barber Shop and chat with the gang. A very quiet part of Town nowadays. 1978??