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Locke Street History Bytes — Issue 5
by Bill Manson
Co-Author of Up and Down Locke Street South.
THE STORY OF LOCKE SOUTH AND THE KIRKENDALL NEIGHBOURHOOD
This is the second of three articles briefly outlining the history
of the Kirkendall neighbourhood and its premier street, Locke South.
Kirkendall Grows Up (1870 - 1900)
By 1870, Hamilton was assuming the character of a major North American
“industrial city”. However, in 1870 our Kirkendall neighbourhood,
which lay on the western outskirts the booming City, was a backwater
centered around a mud track called Locke Street.
In 1875, this rural road became part of the new Ward III, and
things began to happen here. The Macklin Survey which encompassed
the area bounded by Locke, Bold, Concession (Aberdeen), and Garth
(Dundurn), was laid out. Although the cricket grounds interrupted
the course of the road, Robinson (Chatham) was extended west from
Queen all the way to Garth (Dundurn). Also, with the filling in
of the “Beasley’s Hollow” gully at Bold Street,
Locke was extended to meet Concession (Aberdeen) to the south.
Relatively few families had yet chosen to live in Kirkendall and
around Locke South. There were two exceptions. The first was several
workers who built houses in the vicinity of the Hamilton Pottery
which moved to the southwest corner of Locke and Maiden Lane (Jackson)
in 1878. The second was the development, by the Mills Family in
1882, of a housing survey on Herkimer between Queen and Locke.
By contrast in the Strathcona neighbourhood, Locke Street North
with its proximity to the City core, the Bay and the GWR rail yards,
developed rapidly. The opening of Victoria Park and the Crystal
Palace, which was built for the Provincial Agricultural Exhibition
of 1860, made the Locke North area a popular recreational destination,
so much so, that by 1876 the Hamilton Street Railway extended a
horse-drawn tram line from downtown to the park.
It was not until 1885, however, that Kirkendall experienced real
residential and commercial growth. Brick sewers were constructed
and gas lines laid from Concession, north along Locke to Main, and
along Herkimer from Queen to Locke. Soon, thereafter, Herkimer and
Locke south of Main were macadamized. More streets were opened up
between Locke and Garth (Dundurn), including Hannah (Charlton),
Maple (Herkimer), Markland, South (Homewood), and Duke (Melbourne)
which was interrupted by newspaper magnate Reginald Kennedy’s
mansion, “Idlewyld”, on the rise overlooking Bold east
of Pearl.
In the late 1890’s electric-arc street lighting was strung
along Locke to replace the old gas lamps which had been installed
a decade earlier. Residential and commercial construction commenced
along Locke south of Main, particularly on the east side between
Hunter and Herkimer Streets. By 1895 Pine, Oak, and Kennedy Streets
were being settled by working-class families, often through the
generous aid of the Tuckett (Tobacco) Family. In fact, Oak Street
was renamed Tuckett Street in honour of George Thomas Tuckett who
helped financed many of his employees’ mortgages.
Shops opened along the west side of Locke South to serve the needs
of the expanding neighbourhood. For example, members of the Fanning
Family, who had purchased land from Richard Beasley decades before,
had already lived on the site of the present Fanning Building for
many years. Thomas Fanning opened a grocery store there in the early
1880’s. It was the first establishment on Locke South to have
a telephone installed. Across the street, Adam Sachs, a staunch
member of the Immanuel Congregational Church (Lite Computer Centre),
opened competing grocery business. By 1900, there were 8 grocers,
a baker, an upholsterer, a dry-goods store, and a barber plying
their trades along Locke South.
Neighbourhood children still received their elementary education
at the Hannah Street School. However, with the rapid expansion of
the area, the much larger Ryerson Public School was erected in the
adjacent Durand neighbourhood in 1890 on a block of land bounded
by Queen, Duke, Hess and Robinson. Named after Egerton Ryerson,
Chief Superintendent of Education for Canada West, and built at
a cost of $ 30,744, this imposing three-story Gothic Revival style
building served local education needs until 1975.
Although there had been two early Christian missions on Locke South,
one Presbyterian the other Baptist, it was during this period that
Locke South became a street of many churches. The earliest of these
was the Locke Street Presbyterian Church erected in 1886 at Locke
and Herkimer Streets. Saint John the Evangelist Anglican Church
at Locke and Hannah (Charlton) followed in 1891. Saint Joseph’s
Roman Catholic Church at Locke and Herkimer was built in 1893. Immanuel
Congregational Church at Locke and Hunter was dedicated in 1897,
as was the Herkimer Street Baptist Church.
By the turn of the twentieth century, the residents of Locke South
were very well served by public transport. Not only did the Hamilton
Street Railway run frequent electric tram services along King Street,
but the HSR line which ran along Herkimer, at Queen Street and Aberdeen
Avenue, provided a link with the Hamilton and Dundas Electric Railway
(the “Dundas Dummy”), and later the Hamilton and Brantford
Electric Railway, both of which continued to operate for the next
three decades until replaced by buses. Locals even had their own
TH&B Railway stop under the bridge at Poulette Street.
The Herkimer line of the HSR had its western terminus on the northwest
corner of Locke and Herkimer. In 1890 the HSR built a two-story
tram and horse barn on this corner. The barn accommodated up to
42 horses and 12 tram cars. In the summer people of all persuasions
rode in these horse-drawn, open, wooden trams, and in the winter
inside closed cars heated by small coal stoves. In the late 1890’s,
the HSR began to replace horse-drawn vehicles with electric cars,
but the barn at Locke and Herkimer remained part of the neighbourhood
for another three decades.
During the 1890’s families began moving into areas south of
Hannah (Charlton). A brick house was erected at 232 Locke South
in 1889. Wesley Vollick, a cabinetmaker, built a small cottages
at 285 the same year. This brick cottage 35 years later became the
Locke Street Library. Also, at 287 Locke South, James Burns opened
a grocery store. In 1895 Wesley Vollick went into competition with
Burns across the street. The house at 304 was built circa 1890,
as were the semi-detached houses at 331 and 333 between Markland
and Aberdeen.
Thus, by the turn of the century, although most commercial expansion
was on the west side of Locke between Hunter and Robinson (Chatham)
Streets, and most residential growth was concentrated north of Main
and east of Locke, our neighbourhood was assuming the shape and
character that we recognize today as Kirkendall.
If you have any questions, comments or interesting bits of neighbourhood
history you want to share, please e-mail me at upanddown@lockestreet.com.
Cheers for now.
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