Yawkey Farms

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• HELLO THERE...JUST TO ADD TO THE CONFUSION...WHEN THEY DECIDED TO BUILD ESSEX GOLF COURSE (ON MATCHETTE) THE TRACK OF LAND WAS BOUGHT FROM MR.YAWKEY....AND I'VE READ THAT HIS PROPERTY EXTENDED SOUTH TO MARTIN LANE.

• ALSO - I WOULD LIKE TO ASK CLAIRE OR ANYONE - HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF AN ELECTRIC PARK / RESORT LOCATED IN BRIGHTON BEACH IN THE LATTER 19TH CENTURY??...SUPPOSEDLY IT WAS LOCATED DOWN ON THE OLD RIVER ROAD YOU MENTIONED.I'LL SEE IF I CAN FIND THE OLD ARTICLE I READ THAT INFO.IN...BUT I'M PRETTY SURE THAT THE OLD BRONSON'S WAS PART OF THE RESORT?? ANYONE EVER HEARD OF THIS - AND I'M NOT REFERRING TO THE OLD MINERAL SPRINGS IN SANDWICH.

• I've heard what you speak of Robbie. It is discussed here:

  http://cec.chebucto.org/ClosPark/Brighton.html

• YUP...I JUST WENT TO FIND IT...AND YOUR RIGHT - EVERYONE SHOULD CHECK OUT THIS ARTICLE...IT HAS ALOT OF NEAT INFO ABOUT THE AREA. WHEN I GO WALKING IN BRIGHTON BEACH NOW IT;S HARD TO BELIEVE A NEIGHBORHOOD EXISTED MUCH LESS A RESORT...THE AREA IS PRETTY DESTROYED BY ATVS.IT'S TOO BAD. THANKS JOHN.

• Clare the riding stable you refer to is Stu. Lavoies riding stable. It used to be right next to ETR tracks off Broadway. I also was born and raised on Brighton Beach and lived on Wright St. north of Sandwich

• Mrs. pinstripes was in the old 'hood just this afternoon. Went to check on the chestnut tree that was in her childhood home's front yard at the corner of Linsell and Broadway. She often refers to dogpatch as a great little community to grow up in. Her playground was from the Morterm docks to Lecours Texaco to Dainty Foods and back to the river. Imagine doing that as as an unsupervised 10 year old girl today. A lot of old names come to mind, Casey, LaFleur, Lecours and others.

• What a great place to party in the 1950s when I lived in Windsor -- Yawkey Bush! I had friends in LaSalle, too. What I do recall was seeing, not a huge barn like pictured, but remnants of a steel mill's blast furnace, way north of highway 18! People back then referred to it as Ojibway Steel Company's "ghost" as it never had a fire in it -- an earlier depression that probably was a forerunner of the 1930s depression. Windsor could have been the steel city of Canada, but somewhere in history the concept materialized in Hamilton, instead. Now, this info may have been folklore, so -- please refute or acknowledge this info, thanks. Oh, didn't also a creek exist in that area which, further south, became River Canard?

• weird i just read those articles the other day john!

  Claire - i hate to dispute your memories, i really do, but i've got a 1949 photo infront of me showing only chappus and healey directly accessing old front road (or the river). in 1949 wright and page streets pretty much stop at cole ave. the barn i'm seeing still exsists up until at least '61. so had you walked right to the interscetion of healey and old front road and looked to your left, there should have been some large structure of some kind. i wish i lived in this area at that time, it sure seems nice. i hope i'm right Claire cause if i'm not i'll feel truly stupid and rude. if i'm wrong please except my appologies!

  Ken - i was comparing old DTE energy aerial photo's of brighton beach (1949) to satallite images on google earth of the area. in the aerials from 49, 52, and 56 the blast furnaces are still there. next one is 61 and they're scrapped off the earth. they left scars in the shape of 6 or so white pads, which are still visible to this day on google earth if you look maybe 25 meters or more south of the ETR tracks on the morterm dock. i also have a picture of the furnaces...scary lookin things. there were some buildings built by the canada steel corporation, at least one still exists, the old stelco (i think) building at sprucewood and 18. the tin mill on weaver was torn down a couple years ago. both buildings can be found here on IM. but in all those DTE shots nothing ever seems to have been built around those blast furnaces....just trees. heck, there are houses on old front road that are like 150 meters from those furnaces! can't see anyone living there if they were ever on at any point in history.
  it's sad to hear all your stories about living here. i work at the nemak windsor aluminum plant and i stare out into this overgrown abandonment every day. you can always tell where a house was because of a set of trees that don't match anything else in the area, or a row of out of control hedges. now all i see are perverts meeting up with other perverts to do their buisness on an empty lot that at some time was someones home.

  ALSO BEWARE TO ALL WHO CHOOSE TO EXPLORE THIS AREA: the port authority of windsor now owns this land and IS handing out 1500 - 3000 dollar fines for ANYONE found to be back there. if your just walkin around with a camera they may just tell you to get lost. but it is activly being patrolled now since this will be a border crossing soon enough. i witnessed two guys get a $3000 dollar fine, each, because they had dumped some leaves back there...2 bags of leaves.

  boy do i wish i had a time machine.......

• Aaron, my grandfather has told me stories about he and his brother playing in the overgrown sand traps from that golf course in the 30s... Interesting stuff......

• that's awesome Brendan. there's just nowhere like that for kids to grow up in anymore. there's really nothing worth exploring....everything that's cool has a fence around it or has been plowed over. of course most kids today i wouldn't think go outside to explore anyhow.
  look how many memories and information come out from this one photo!