We’re still examining “here-and-gone things” in our weekly local history feature.
Today, local historian Karen Bachmann talks about the Thomson Building at the corner of Cedar St. and Second Ave.
Roy Thomson, who eventually was a media mogul with the title Baron Thomson of Fleet, got his start locally with CKGB Radio and the Daily Press. His location on Spruce St. burned down in 1933.
“So because he was making money because things were really starting to take shape with radio and all those wonderful things,” says Bachmann, “he invested in a state of the art building for the headquarters for Thomson Enterprises, which was in Timmins in 1938, 39.”
The art deco structure housed Roy Thomson’s radio station; the presses for the Daily Press; offices for the radio station and newspaper: and apartments for Thomson and sports reporter Jack Kent Cooke.
“That building was built by Sheppard and Mason Architects, who were real hoity-toity guys from Windsor, Ont., and they developed all kinds of different things and build a lot of the spaces for like Hiram Walker and all those wonderful things,” Bachmann tells us. “So it was a beautiful building that we no longer have in the community, but it was one of those here-and-gone things.”
Thanks, as always, to Karen Bachmann for making our local history feature possible.
