Wednesday, November 25, 2009

ICONS of the corner store......


Smith's Confectionery, on the corner of Franklin and Donald Streets in Fort William(now Thunder Bay, Ontario) was very close to where I lived as a kid and the bus in front of the store would drop kids off to go to St. Patrick's High School which was just across the street from here....we didn't have 100 school buses picking us up at our doorstep like kids have today. I met my future wife going to St. Pat's after a stint at Selkirk High, but the main thing was all the great things we remember as kids especially at the corner store......and how it also became a meeting place....."I'll meet you at Smiths a 7pm and we'll go to the show!"
This is just a small sample of what we may find at "The Corner Store".
The 4 half pint dairy bottles from my collection were the main dairies that would supply chocolate, white, and sometimes cherry milk to the stores here at the lakehead. The Dixie Cup lids from Kellough Bros. Dairy and Dairybest Dairy(the owners and family of Dairybest Dairy were close family friends with my parents and my brother and sister and I...Hi Liz!) were quite collectible at the time as the picture ones could be saved up and sent in for a movie star poster(WOW). However if you kept some of the lids you could order up a 3-D viewer to view them if 3-D of course....Sorry the stuff isn't for sale :-)


Wow...All this great stuff and CANDY CIGARETTES too. We could practise smoking just like dad, but would never smoke the real ones....no never!! They may as well have had fake beer bottles with orange or cola in them too!
Real Coca Cola was fantastic and this Orange Crush bottle came in about the 60's. Awwww, Creamsicles...I can taste it now!
Remember all the different gums, and gumball machines. There was nothing like blowing bubbles with Dubble Bubble...remember the great taste!





Cool Aid stands, Fudgsicles, Pepsi, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Tony the Tiger, Hershey Bars, and Wonder Bread(which still exists today).
Just a way to tweak your mind and bring you back to the good old days in the 1950's and 1960's
Thanks for looking an be sure to click on each one to enlarge for your enjoyment.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great stuff Dave. Keep the Fort William (and Port Arthur) history coming. I can't get enough!
Jon T

RandomThoughts said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dave Cano said...

Actually...no... I have a gumball machine with so called Dubble Bubble gumballs...they don't look or taste like the original pink chunk of Dubble Bubble with the little cartoon strip! Where did they go!

Anonymous said...

I liked Black Cat & Green Cat gum better. What was the name of the confectionary on the corner of Selkirk & Arthur across from Vickers Park? I remember that for 5 cents you could buy a big piece of sponge toffee there. Mmmmm. Keep up the good work Dave. You are a hidden gem here in Fort William & Port Arthur.

Dave Cano said...

The confectionery across from Vicker's Park was Black's. Orville Black ran that one for many years and the one memory that stands out in my mind was my dad sending me there for his pack of Guinea-Gold cigarettes. They were only .33 cents. No wonder everyone smoked then, and even though he did, he is still around at 90 years. Who would guess that! Thanks for your comments... D.