The Historic Banks of Trout Creek

The Historic Banks of Trout Creek. Historic St. Marys. Millennium Park , This park area was dedicated in 2000 to the memory of early settlers whose hard work and enterprising spirit spurred the growth of this community and paved the way for future generations., In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a viewer would have seen in this immediate are a cluster of industries: several sawmills, a flour mill, a foundry, a carriage maker and a variety of other business ventures. Today, as economic realities have changed St. Marys, most of this industrial heritage has disappeared from the banks of Trout Creek., Trout Creek Dam , In the early 1840s, the Ingersoll brothers built a sawmill on Trout Creek west of Water Street and a gristmill on the Thames River south of Queen Street. Soon both waterways supported several water-powered mills., Very early, a dam was built at the mouth of Trout Creek where it joined the Thames River to create a millpond. Further upstream just beyond the Grand Trunk Railway's Sarnia Bridge, another dam crossed the Thames River. From this dam, a millrace emptied into the Trout Creek millpond beside the Water Street Bridge. This long-vanished millrace followed the route of the road that today runs along the northeast edge of Milt Dunnell Field (The Flats.), The Trout Creek dam remained in place until 1908 when the present dam was built across the Thames River just below the confluence of the two waterways. The resulting lake was named Rice Lake, for Henry Lincoln Rice, president of the Carter Milling Company at that time and thus the person responsible for this modification to the natural waterways., Steel Bridge , The steel Water Street Bridge was erected in 1898 at a cost of $2,000. John Elliott, the mason who worked on the Town Hall in 1891, built the stone abutments. The steelwork was provided by the Stratford Bridge Company. In a community of limestone, the steel bridge was rather an oddity when it was completed and the public had some reservations about its strength. To allay public fears, William Weir, a rather flamboyant municipal politician, drove twenty fat steers onto the bridge, barricading both ends. The bridge supported this weight and community concerns were put to rest. This historic structure is a fine example of a pin-connected Pratt truss bridge, one of the few remaining in Ontario., Looking Eastward Along Trout Creek , As well as the steel Water Street Bridge, three more bridges cross Trout Creek to the east. The first, the Wellington Street Bridge, is the newest, constructed on the site of a pioneer wooden bridge that crossed the creek at this point as early as the 1840s. A beautifully designed concrete bridge replaced the wooden bridge in 1912. In turn, its deck and railings were replaced in 1971 on the original stone abutments., Next to the east is the double arched Church Street Bridge. Built of St. Marys limestone in 1884 at a cost of $3,800 by stonemasons James Clyde and John Elliott, it blends wonderfully with its surrounding landscape. In 1979, the bridge was carefully rebuilt, the deck reinforced and the walls and arches restored to their original appearance., The third bridge, the Grand Trunk Railway viaduct, is in the distance, magnificently spanning the Trout Creek valley. It was built in 1858 by local stonemasons Alexander McDonald and Francis Anderson under contract to the railway. Although the Grand Trunk Railway and the Canadian National Railway have from time to time replaced and reinforced the steel beams on the limestone piers, these are the original stone structures. The bridge is still in daily use by both passenger and freight trains., Lost Heritage , Today, although the town's historic bridges anchor us to the past, these riverbanks have been greatly modified. We rely on old photographs to help us visualize the vanished smoke stacks of the industries that once lined these banks and the arched roof of another forgotten landmark, the curling/skating rink, situated on the north bank between Wellington and Church Streets. For more information about the town's industrial heritage, please contact the St. Marys Museum, 177 Church Street South.