Family-run Businesses Dominate Early Commerce
A towering red brick building constructed in the mid 1880s by Frederick William Crooker to house his general store once stood on the northeast corner of Main and Dundas Streets. The Crooker family’s involvement in local commercial enterprises dates to the early 1850s with a list of trades including grocer, baker, dealer in dry goods/hardware and druggist.
The building survived a 1906 village fire but was destroyed in a second fire in 1915, after which a smaller structure was rebuilt by Mr. Crooker and then sold to the Dale Family who established a grocery business. The site once again fell victim to flames when it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1922. The Dales constructed the building you see here today but stayed only a year before selling it to W.C. ‘Wilf’ Langford who operated a pharmacy at this location for the next 64 years. The drugstore closed its doors on May 31, 1988, and moved into the new Waterdown Plaza at Dundas and Hamilton Street. The present storefront has remained virtually unchanged and continues to operate as a retail business. (PHOTO of Dale’s store, 1921).

On the opposite (northwest corner) of Main Street sits the village’s second prominent hotel that has been a popular ‘watering hole’ since the last decade of the nineteenth century. The one-time site of Thomas English’s carriage works, the property was purchased by Partrick Kirk in 1888 who converted the frame hotel to a brick building that remained in the Kirk family for three generations until it was sold in1966. The landmark Victorian era manse continued as the Kirk until 1995 when it was re-branded as The Royal Coachman. 

Until the 1950s, the property featured an open area to the north with trees, a rustic bridge and a stream that meandered across the property south from the McGregor estate on Main Street. The trees were removed to make way for the present parking lot and the stream was re-routed into a drain. If you stand on the sidewalk in front of the Canada Post office on Main Street, you can still hear rushing water running under Main Street North.

Fires change the face of Waterdown
Four major fires in 1906, 1915, 1918 and 1922 cut devastating swaths through downtown Waterdown and are partly responsible for the eclectic mix of heritage and modern-style buildings that populate today’s village streetscape. 

Although poorly documented, the first fire in 1906 broke out just east of the Main Street North intersection and destroyed several businesses. The Crooker Store was left standing. 

Unfortunately, the Crooker property was not spared a decade later when another fire leveled the corner block on May 25, 1915. Fire destroyed the general store as well as the large hall and public library located on the upper floors of the building. Adjacent buildings including Alton’s Barber Shop and Pool Room were also badly damaged when a wall collapsed.

Three years later on September 30, 1918, yet another fire destroyed the rear section of W. Cummins Drugstore. This blaze, as reported at the time in the Waterdown Review, underlined the need for better firefighting apparatus and stronger building codes.

Ferocious flames returned not even four years later when the Great Fire of May 23, 1922, engulfed the south side of Dundas Street between Franklin and Main Street, destroying 11 businesses, the Roller Rink and three private homes. At its height, the fire threatened to destroy the entire village core. A spark from the engine room of the David Davies Cooperage and Heading Mill ignited a pile of sawdust, with flames spreading quickly to neighbouring frame construction buildings. Water from the stream running through the Kirk property, along with water from Dr. McGregor’s pone was used to help douse the fire.

Credits

Mural art by Bhairavi Jathar Talpade

Metal art by Soul Metal, Carol Nasvytis

Learn more about the Heritage Art Walk HERE.