by R.W. Ford (1987) Stretching for over 30 kilometres along the St. Clair River from the southern tip of Lake Huron to the village of Sombra lies the largest concentration of petroleum and chemical industry in Canada. Some 25 kilometres inland ancient oil wells grudgingly yield a few barrels of [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He could run well in two fields. Norm Perry, the legendary 'Galloping Ghost' of Canadian football, is best remembered as the fleet-footed halfback who led the Sarnia Imperials to a stunning Grey Cup victory. What's been largely forgotten over the years is that [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He lost the fight to have it built in Sarnia, but Mayor Fred Pelling did play a role in getting the Bluewater Bridge off the ground. Born near Kitchener in 1890, Pelling lived in Brantford and Toronto before moving to Sarnia to take [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He helped pull Sarnia out of the Great Depression. That probably best sums up the career of William F. Crompton, who served as our 54th Mayor in 1936. Crompton, a railroad engineer who lived at 180 Alfred Street, sat on Council for several [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer Mayor Edward Bedard gave Sarnians a tax break when they needed it most. Bedard, who was elected our 53rd Chief Magistrate in 1935, slashed taxes during the height of the Great Depression. Born in 1885 in the tiny Huron County community of Holmesville, [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer Mayor Edward J. Blake headed the Council that was accused of trying to muzzle the press with "Nazi" tactics. Known to his friends as "Teddy", Blake was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1879. He came to Canada as a seven-Year old, living in [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer The story of Gordon Hodgins is more about what might have been than about anything he accomplished in the Mayor's chair. That's because our 57th Chief Magistrate committed suicide just 24 days after taking office at the beginning of 1934. The tragic death [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He introduced a form of 'workfare' more than half a century before Ontario Premier Mike Harris came up with the same idea. Homer J. Lockhart, who was elected our 50th Mayor in 1933, headed the Council that forced unemployed people to work for [...]
by Lawrence A. Crich (1986) No history of early education in Sarnia would be complete without some mention of the efforts of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society in Upper Canada on the St. Clair Indian Reserve. The Reserve then covered a much greater area than its modern counterpart stretching north [...]
by Charles Phelps (1980) From the 1870s the Blackwell Sideroad was the dividing line between School Section Three (Bright’s Grove School) and School Section Six (Clark’s School at Murphy Road). The children from Blackwell Sideroad east went to S.S. No. 3 and the children from Blackwell Sideroad west attended S.S. [...]
