From the Windsor Star – July 31, 1936:
Windsor police today were searching for the driver of a car, which shortly before noon crashed into the guard rail of the C.P.R. Bridge on London Street West.
Police hurried to the scene, found the car, registered in the name of Alice O’Gorman of La Salle, but there was no sign of its occupants. Witnesses told police that the driver had been taken away in a car, apparently injured.
The car jumped the curb, demolished an iron railing around the front lawn of the Canada Packers office and ended up against the bridge guard, as shown above.
An empty liquor bottle, baskets of tomatoes and other produce were found in the car.
I love the description, produce and liquor… 🙂
Canada Packers was located on the south east corner of University Avenue (then known as London Street) and Salter. As seen in this fire insurance map from 1937.
The building still stands, and the scene of the mystery is marked by the yellow arrow.
The photo above is from 1949, and it looks like the bridge has either been replaced or widened as it looks much wider today. The fire insurance map above greatly exaggerates the narrowing of the bridge, although as you can see in the photo from 1949 it was a bit narrower than the road.
Maybe some of the rail fans out there will know if and when the CPR bridge at University was widened or replaced?
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SBW - The fire map shows it as "vacant":
The 1923-24 City Directory list a Lumber Yard there...
@Brendan - I remember Yorkie very well. He was a fixture downtown when I worked there during the 70's and 80's and was a well liked character. It was a testament to his popularity that when he died many local dignitaries attended his funeral including at least one judge. The story was told that one year when summer was over and the days were growing colder, Yorkie, looking to be jailed for the winter, tossed a brick thru the window of an Ouellette Ave business and waited to be arrested. When he went before the judge he was released rather than jailed and so Yorkie went back to the scene of the crime, waited until the glaziers had finished replacing the window he had smashed, and tossed another brick thru it. This time he got his wish and was "put up" for the winter.
All of this was reported in The Windsor Star at the time.
Cool, thanks Andrew I always wondered what was there before. Judging by the age of the trees back in there, it must have been gone for a few dacades now.
Yorkie, Norman Hayworth, had served in the Navy during WW2. His drunk charges were often heard before Magistrate Gordon R. Stewart who, in a way, kept a an eye out for the veteran. There was no detox centre so Stewart would let Yorkie run up several days of convictions before sending him to jail for the always unpaid fines and to dry up. Yorkie was in court almost every session and whether he walked out that day with a fine or was sent to jail depended on whether he looked like whether he had been eating properly or not. In December Stewart would look at the calendar and give Yorkie a longer sentence than the usual three days to be sure he was in long enough so he could have the jail's Christmas dinner. He was originally a Brit and his nickname was based on birthplace in the UK.