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97 Hurontario Street
- Lot 13 Pt. Lot 14, Plan 282, By-law No. 81-40
The Market Building 1889-91
Dominating the Hurontario streetscape with its massive arches and lofty clock tower, Collingwood’s municipal building projects a calculated image of strength and stability. But in the turbulent years during which it was constructed and then reconstructed, the “Market Building,” as it was known, was plagued with misfortune.
Conceived as a symbol of civic pride and progress, the apparently invincible structure defied early attempts to make it the long-term town centre. Even before construction began in the summer of 1889, a foundation of trouble was being laid. In its issue of April, 1889, the influential Canadian Architect and Builder, which had been highly critical of civil leaders and their mishandling of design competitions for public buildings, took members of Collingwood council to task for their exasperating ignorance: “We have also seen a notice of competition to be held for a town hall in Collingwood. The notice is very brief and very indefinite, the committee evidently not knowing anything about a competition.”
In the end, the committee bypassed local architects to select a Romanesque Revival design conceived by Toronto architects C. J. Gibson and Henry Simpson. Typical of the style made popular by American architect H. H. Richardson, the Collingwood building featured the prominent arches and bold rustication that characterized public buildings of the period. Built of pressed brick, laid in the stretcher style and embellished with Duntroon sandstone, the building was crowned with the requisite clock tower, which ironically was not fitted with a clock until 1950.
Like many municipal buildings in towns of similar size, Collingwood’s town hall was a multi-purpose affair designed to house a farmer’s market, retail stores, a courtroom and opera house as well as a clerk’s office and council chambers. The construction of a new town hall, which would replace an inadequate building on the same site, signaled progress to many Collingwood citizens, but to the contractors who worked on the building the omens were not good.
For John Chamberlain, a skilled bricklayer who had established an excellent reputation for craftsmanship, the Market Building was a source of humiliation. In an article dated September 19, 1889, and headlined “Poor Work,” the Enterprise and Collingwood Messenger reported:
”The genial countenance of ex-alderman Chamberlain is shadowed over with melancholy and gloom these days. It seems that the stonework on the face of the new town hall is not up to the mark, and the Inspector and Architect have made strenuous objections, in consequence of which the work has to be done over again. A number of thoughtless citizens have added to the trouble by their unkind remarks and questions.”
A few weeks later, another contractor met with a serious accident on the building site. A report in the Enterprise and Collingwood Messenger (November 7, 1889) described the incident:
“Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Frank Bryan of F. W. Bryan and Bros. fell from the gallery joist of the new town hall to the ground. When Mr. John Chamberlain picked the fallen man up, he was unconscious and apparently dead, but he soon rallied … Dr. Stephen was called in … and was unable to discover anything more serious than a severe contusion of the forehead.”
The town hall had no sooner been erected and furnished at a cost of $25,000 when disaster struck again. On August 13, 2890, while the townspeople celebrated the civic holiday, a fire broke out in the old market building and rapidly spread to the new structure. The hall was “completely ruined,” recalled Fred T. Hodgson in his 1894 Board of Trade Report, “nothing but the walls left standing.”
Fortunately, however, council had had the foresight to insure the hall and its contents and quickly approved its reconstruction, this time under the supervision of Collingwood architects Hodgson and Kieswtter. The architects took the opportunity to make several improvements to the original plan – the courtroom was expanded and the entrance to the Opera Hall changed – and the rebuilding process was completed in 1891.
Since then, the town hall has undergone considerable interior alterations. The market function was phased out gradually and in 1949, an arena was built where the Opera Hall had been situated. In 1984, the town hall received a facelift and major overhaul. The $1.2-million project, supervised by Collingwood architects Carswell and Griesbach, was successful in preserving the heritage character of the building, while meeting the modern needs of an active municipal administration.