Cornwall Ontario. Fires of 1933. View behind the businesses

View behind the businesses.

A man with a dog is perched on some lumber to stay out of the water at the back of the buildings. To his left is a burned-out delivery truck. The spray of the hoses on Pitt Street can be seen beyond the truck. Above the man’s hat, second-floor porches show where people had homes upstairs over the stores. The following day, Cornwall’s Kinsmen Club reported 36 families were homeless and of these 15 had nothing left except the clothes they were wearing that lunch hour. Thirty-one businesses along Pitt Street (West side), ten business places, five dwellings, and the Victoria Arena, on Third Street as well as an apartment block and store on Pitt Street (East side) were lost at a loss of $243,855 of which only $135,900 were covered by insurance. It took years for Legion Branch 297 to overcome the losses of the track and field day ruined by the downtown fire.

~ Lily Worrall Collection

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