Happy Friday again everyone… Welcome to October. Today we have a photo on which I have no background information… It’s a photo of the Windsor Raceway Grandstand on fire. The photo is dated March 20 (might be 26), 1975. Credit is given to “Bill Kofender – Windsor Raceway Photographer”.
When I met architect Doug Johnson a few years ago, he mentioned that his firm did some work at Windsor Raceway after a fire…
Does anyone out there remember this event? What caused it, how extensive was it?
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Neat! Looks pretty involved. It must be eating thru the roof if that incredibly scary lookinig aerial is active. And there's quite a bit of water coming from the place.
Thanks Andrew!
I have vague memories of this, as it happened just two days before I moved to Windsor.
I don’t have access to the Windsor papers for that year close at hand, but according to the Monday, March 24, 1975 Toronto Star, there was a fire the day before that “destroyed a good portion of the clubhouse forcing cancellation of the final two weeks of racing. The stable area,however is fully occupied and horsemen continue to use the track.”
According to the same day's Globe & Mail, which noted that there was also extensive damage to the grandstand, the fire “began at 4:45 p.m., an hour before about 5,000 patrons were to begin filing in for the evening’s races.” The damage was estimated at nearly $2 million.
The Windsor Fire and Rescue website has an interesting little recap of the fire.
http://www.windsorfire.com/ecom.asp?pg=rekindled&specific=25
Aparently it caused a delay in the running of the Provincial Cup, forcing the spring race to become a fall one.....
The fire was on a nice Sunday afternoon and it was a long run for the first fire trucks from station 4 to reach the scene. As the afternoon and the fire progressed several other Windsor fire stations were dispatched with their apparatus to try and control the blaze, including the classic Pirsch aerial.
In regard to the Windsor Raceway fire in 1975. The fire according to officials began in the attic among packed curtains - it was spontaneous combustion. The second floor mutual line, money room and parts of the club house received heavy damage. I was among the track's management and was given a guided tour by firemen so I could asses what was damaged and make a report. The track closes in the summer because we could not compete with the two Michigan tracks so time was given for extensive repairs which were almost done to open in October when the USA tracks were closed