Lost Windsor

Crescent Lanes - 871 Ottawa

September 15, 2024
Crescent Lanes first opened on Ottawa Street in 1944 at 1055 Ottawa Street, opposite Lanspeary Park, in the building just west of Master Cleaners, in a 12 lane bowling alley. That building in 1957, was the first bowling alley in Canada to have automatic pin setters. In 1965, the alley relocated to the building shown above to a larger 24 lane facility. The bowling alley was operated by…
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Lost Windsor

White's Restaurant & The Elbow Room - 33 Pitt Street East

July 7, 2024
in 1917 two Greek brothers Gus & Harry Lukos purchased a one story building on Pitt Street East housing White’s Cafe. In 1924 they built a 3 story building with a bowling alley, that became known as The Windsor Recreation Building. White’s was located on the…
Demolitiongoing, going, gone...Lost Windsor

841 Ouellette - Final Days

May 5, 2024
An unremarkable end to a part of Windsor’s history. The large vacant house at 841 Ouellette that was recently painted in a rainbow pattern of colours, burned down the other night in a spectacular fire. Built in 1890 for J.D. Arthur Deziel, the home served as a beauty parlor in the late 1930s and a dance studio in the early 1940s, before becoming a rooming house for a few decades. It was a…
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DemolitionLost WindsorOld Photographs

Joseph L. Reaume House - 1924

April 21, 2024
One for the lost Windsor files, is this house that once belonged to Joseph Reaume of Ford City. Reaume was a builder and was was also the assessor of the town of Ford City. The house was built to resemble houses that Reaume saw during his winters away in California. The…
Buildings of WindsorDemolitionLost WindsorNotable WindsoritesOld Newspaper Stories

Clarke Monuments - 1044 Howard Avenue

August 20, 2023
Here’s one that’s a more recently lost piece of Windsor History. This small block building on Howard, just south of Erie Street, stood from the early 1920s until about 2020. For most of a century this was the home to D Clarke Monuments, a gravestone maker that was conveniently located near to Windsor Grove Cemetery at Howard & Gilles. Don Clarke, the proprietor of the…
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Lost WindsorOld Photographs

Drouillard Road - c 1928

July 30, 2023
Photo above from the collection of the Windsor Public Library A shot taken around 1928 on the east side of Drouillard in between what is today Whelpton & Trenton streets. A pair of architecturally interesting buildings here, both lost to time. Oddly the building to…
Old Newspaper StoriesWindsor

Sign Cleaning - 1923

July 16, 2023
The photo above appeared in the Border Cities Star a century ago, appearing in the the July 17, 1923 edition on page 3. How would you like this job? There is no need telling where the two brush wielders are working, for the Prince Edward’s big electric sign is…