From the Evening Record – April 13, 1912:
The story goes that last fall Mr. Appelbe set out to acquire some Pitt street frontage. He owned the Erie Tobacco Co. at that time, but he wanted some more property in this section. There were negotiations with the Cameron estate in Toronto. It is said that Mr. Appelbe first offered $75 a foot. Then it is claimed, he closed up the deal at $100 a foot. Just about the time the transaction was being wound up Osterhout & Little shied their castor into the ring, making a deposit with John Curry & Co. here, as agents for the Cameron estate, for some thirty feet of the same property Mr. Appelbe has been after.
Osterhout & Little agreed to purchase their strip at $125 a foot, and told Mr. Appelbe, if he wanted the property, he would have to pay them $200 a foot. Osterhout & Little still claim they own the land, but Mr. Appelbe says they are suffering from a rarebit dream. After Osterhout & Little had announced that they purchased the Bains building, a few feet past the blacksmith shop, Appelbe returned the compliment by closing a deal with John Bains, the owner, whereby Appelbe actually got the deed, which settles all argument (sic) Walter Cruise claims he had an option from Bains and sold to Osterhout & Little.
It looks like a merry little battle in the courts for somebody.
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A dying business even by that time.
Would have been sad to apprentice in the early 1900s knowing automobiles were climbing in prominence. Not much need for a Blacksmith after the teens.
Blacksmiths where a nessesary trade right through the fifties, all the horses used on the farms, and pulled the milk and bread wagons for door to door delivery, had to have new shoes on a regular basis. With the market crash, the depresion, and Woorld War Two, horses where needed almostto the sixties for milk and bread delivery,the demiss of the horse drawn wagon, and supermarkets killed home delivery.
Amazing research on your part to keep coming up with new pictures and postings from the past. love this site!! As long as there are still horses around, this trade will be needed.
Richard, that is true.
But after automobiles took over as the main means of transportation, and machines made nails, screws, and all the fittings needed in households and industry, Blacksmithing was little more than a shadow of what it once was.
Now it's a novelty.
If being a blacksmith is a novelty, who shoes the horses used for raceing,such as Windsor Raceway, Hazel Park, Woodbine Race Track,their are at least two channels on Cogeco that deal solely with horse raceing. Also any one who owns a horse needs a blacksmith, they do not get their shoes at Walmart. May be you should checkout the subject before writing it of as a novelety.
Chill.
Yeah chill Richard, you must be a blacksmith.
I didn't mean to offend, but it is NOT a highly sought after trade anymore, and hasn't been like I said since the 1910s.
I can argue history with you until the end of time, but I don't have that kind of time.
Of course it's still around, but it's a novelty trade, and that's that.
You guys are right. It is now a novelty. And rare. Would you believe the railways had blacksmiths: for steam locomotives maintenance/repair. My dad was one in the repair shops in Stratford 'til the Sixties -- his profession was not unlike that of the counterparts in shoeing horses. My memory is fading, but I think they used an anvil and furnace and other tools to prepare the steel driving rods for steam locomotives.
Again, it was a bygone era.
I agree with Red. I adore this site and when I stumbled upon it I looked at all 49 pages of articles. I love it! Keep up the great work, Andrew!