The Fred W. Armstrong Arena

The Fred W. Armstrong Arena was Milton’s first indoor ice skating and hockey arena. It was also known by locals as the "Brown Street Arena" or "Brown Street Gardens." It was built on the north-east corner of Brown Street and Mary Street in 1921 at a cost of $15,000. This cost was borne by the Milton Arena Company, led by Dr. Marshall Gowland, a local physician and politician. During World War II, with most of the community's hockey players on active duty in Europe, the arena was used to store wool as a wartime measure., Fred Armstrong purchased the Brown Street arena in 1947 from the Town of Milton at a cost of $5,000. Mr. Armstrong, who also owned the Milton Inn next door, committed $31,000 to install an artificial ice surface (ice frozen by refrigeration). The ice surface-making machinery included consumer ice production, enabling the delivery of ice to local residents, just before the electric refrigerator became a common household item., In 1955, the money-losing arena was heavily damaged by fire and, after being repaired by volunteers, came back into Town ownership in 1956 through Mr. Armstrong's estate. The arena was demolished in 1978 after failing an engineering inspection by the Ontario Ministry of Labour. It was replaced by Milton Memorial Arena on Thompson Road.