All of the road repairs this summer made us think about transportation in the early days. After gold was discovered, the towns grew every year. With more people, came more businesses and more people participating in the daily hustle and bustle.
It was proudly reported that in 1915, no less than 22 automobiles were present in Timmins and South Porcupine. The roads were simply hand-packed dirt in the summer and snow in the winter made driving even more challenging. Because of the rough roads, automobiles made a slow appearance in Timmins, but as the city thrived the roads became better and better and cars became more visible.
People became so “motor-minded” that the car population rose to first place for the most cars per capita in Canada after the opening of the Ferguson Highway in the late '20s. The Ferguson Highway was the first road to link The Porcupine with southern Ontario. It officially opened in September 1927 and connected the Porcupine Goldfields to Toronto.
Approximately 1,500 people participated in the launch that year by driving their cars from Cochrane to the Canadian National Exhibition grounds in Toronto. By the time the highway was semi-passable, Leo Mascioli’s Timmins Garage Co. Ltd. was advertising round-the-clock service and a storage garage that could accommodate 95 cars. Horses however were not phased out by the fire department until 1934.
The Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre regularly provides TimminsToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past.
Find out more of what the Timmins museum has to offer here and read more Remember This columns here.
