Some comments the other day were asking about the peabody bridge. I don’t have much info about it, but here’s what I do have.
A postcard view, you can see the bridge to the right of the silos.
An aerial view from 1952
1981 – Note the Peabody building is still standing. If you look at the corner of Devonshire and Riverside Dr. you can see the footprint of the flatiron building.
2007
A view from 1913 of the Peabody Building, and the Peabody Bridge.
Obviously the bridge was in place in 1913, and was well built, as it lasted into the 1990’s, only being removed after the rail lines came off the river front.
As much as we’re all fans of the heritage of the city, I doubt you’ll find many tears shed over the loss of the Peabody bottleneck. 😉
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Seen as how the last few great post, have been from this area. I have wondered if anyone got pictures of the former Pere Marquette train station, and other C&O items from that area, and also information on when the Present Day VIA Rail Station was built on Hiarm Walkers Property. I know that the VIA Rail Station was built when CNR was still into Passenger Rail service, but do not know what year that it was built. Also what about the former CNR Station that was Closer to Downtown. I just wish i could find more information about this stuff, but its also nice to see what others have from around Windsor.
Colin, that is the Walker Power Building (east of the Peabody Building). It was built by Detroit Architects Stahl, Kinsey & Chapman c. 1913. They also designed the fence around Willistead, and the old King George on Ottawa St. (now Ecole Envoleé). I'm not sure what the current status is of it, but it's ripe for reuse IMO...
Ian, it seems our rail heritage isn't the most covered. Especially when it comes to stations. I recently came acorss some interior photos of the old staiton at the foot of Goyeau from the 50's. It was a complaint in the paper about what a dump it was... :)
I'll see if I can find it.
Andrew, the reason nothing has happened with the Walker Power building are two-fold.
1) Windsor's fire marshall stated the building was "a death trap" with no escape routes in case of fire, poor signage, no exit signs, blocked main routes...that is why they clsoed it.
2) due to PCB's in the ground they cannot convert this building and remoed some of the people who were living there. Until that is cleaned up the building will rot away.
Thanks for the DTE link Andrew. I used to have it bookmarked but lost it and couldn't find the website. I have already spend many many hours on this site and plan to spend a few more.
No problem. The DTE photos used to be housed elsewhere, but the program at Wayne State that used them was discontinued, and they were moved elsewhere on the site.
I know that Windsor is only an afterthought in those photos, but they are fascinating all the same.
i remember as a kid the riverdale bus the predessor of the crosstown that used to run along the drive,i used to hate going over the Peabody bridge in the bus because of how steep the west bound lane off the bridge was it always felt like we would hit a oncoming car
my mother and i were having a convo about this the other day... she mentioned something about one of her childhood classmates getting caught in a switch and losing there life during one of their adventures on the tracks