Reaume Community Centre Subdivsion – 1924

The early 1920s were boom years in the Border Cities, with land to the east of the city of Windsor being the big movers. The Reaume Organization was one of the larger land developers in the area. Ulysses Guy Reaume, was the mayor of Ford City, eventually the first Reeve of Riverside and was active in real estate until his death in 1969. The firm built offices on Ouellette at Maiden Lane, in a building that still stands as the home of Lazare’s Furs.

This development, south of Tecumseh Road, centered along Rossini Boulevard in Sandwich East township was planned to be a big one.

Built with an impressive entrance, and featuring what was a 60 ft flagpole at the intersection of Rossini & Tecumseh, there were high hopes for this development, and the boom of the Border Cities. However, in a few short years, the depression would come along and all the development would grind to a halt for the better part of two decades.

Surprisingly, especially for Windsor, the gates to the entrance have survived nearly a century, also surviving is the small island where the flagpole stood at the entrance to the subdivision.

As you can see from the map on the left from 1924 vs today on the right, not much happened south of Grand Marais. The big showpiece of development was going to be Reaume Park at the end of Rossini Boulevard and Grand Boulevard. Grand Boulevard was envisioned as a ring road across the city, like Grand Boulevard in Detroit. Stretching from Turkey Creek to Little River (with both having been covered and turned into drains/sewers). A few small stretches were built, a section just east of the one in this plan, along with West Grand Boulevard in South Windsor, being part of the same plan. A .pdf of the 1924 map can be found here.