Ruby Smith, Heritage Arts Legacy of Fort Erie, FEO April 14, 2022, VOL. 3 ISSUE 17
Marcie Jacklin was born in Toronto and eventually moved to Fort Erie. An avid bird watcher, Marcie was pictured bird watching with her big scope as a participant in the fourth “Birds Along the Niagara Festival”.
She received in 2021, the Stan Hopkins Outdoors Person of the Year Award, a prestigious annual award by Canada’s Wildlife Federation. For over 30 years, Marcie has raised awareness as to the importance of protecting natural environments. She is the force behind the creation of Voices of Fort Erie in 2018, the purpose of which is to save historical ERIE BEACH PARK (Waverly Woods) from development.
The 14-hectare Erie Beach Park (Waverly Woods) property in question spans the area south of Dominion Road, between Basset Avenue to the west and Bardol Road and Buttonwood Drive to the east. The development includes 86 single detached lots, 96 townhouse dwellings and a 10-story apartment building. For four years, Voices of Fort Erie activists have worked tirelessly in raising funds for lawyer fees and contacting any and every source that may help to curtail and stop this destructive development.
Heritage Arts has not interacted directly with Marcie and her group, but Erie Beach Park was a major site that we showcased through the Arts over the years. In 2010, Erie Beach was our focus site for our annual Symposiums. We toured the site, photographed, sketched or painted and then showcased the artwork to the public. Rhoda Keultjes, Heritage Arts Treasurer, sold all five of her Erie Beach paintings and Les Knutson, a former Erie Beachboy, sold two Dance Hall paintings at five hundred dollars apiece. We were more than proud to showcase Brian McNamara’s print of the swimming pool and beach.
We conducted three tours of the park including one for the Historical Society. In 2015, we were responsible in part for the unveiling of the NAACP plaque located in Erie Beach Park (Waverly) and for the displays. Two hundred and fifty people attended including Byron Brown, mayor of Buffalo, New York. In 1905, Black leaders from the U.S.A. held their first NAACP meeting at the prestigious Erie Beach Hotel located at Erie Beach Park (Waverly).
I have personal interest in the park. I was born in a house at the corner of Albert and Lakeshore Road, grew up in the area and my birth certificate proudly states “born in ERIE BEACH.”
In May 1985, my FEES principal gave me and my grade eight homeroom class permission to conduct an Erie Beach Day. In the morning, we showcased displays focused on Erie Beach and listened to guest speakers. Diane Mathews, employed at the Centennial Library, recorded interviews of our guest presenters. In the afternoon, we were bussed to Erie Beach, where Al Reid conducted the tour. He prepared a map and a list of numbered places that existed in the park before 1930. The kids viewed old foundations and checked their maps to determine what building was located on that site. Loie McDermott, town historian attended the morning session, displayed his Erie Beach research, and dressed in vintage clothing.
There were four-story plaques installed along the bicycle trail just past the ruins of the Dance Hall. All had quotes from interviews taken from those guest speakers in 1985. Al Reid remembered the Park as a kid, ran in the race competitions held in the stadium, which had grandstand seating for 3,500. He also told us that when out in a boat at night and looking at the Park, “it looked like a starry, starry night.” Gladys Barnhart, the mother of Harry Barnhart (a teacher at FEES at the time), was present at both morning and afternoon sessions and was also quoted on the panels. As a young woman from Buffalo, Gladys had a job in the park selling tickets and it was there that she met and later married, Harry Barnhart Sr. He was a fireman on the Sandfly Express, a little train that ran from the ferry dock at the foot of Bertie Street where passengers embarked after being ferried across the Niagara River from Buffalo to and from Erie Beach Park. Harry purchased a memorial bench located in the area of the plaque panels in honour of his father, a firefighter on the Snake Hill and Pacific Railroad (Sandfly Express) and to his grandfather, a conductor on the train which travelled on narrow gage rail.
ERIE BEACH IS ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT HISTORICAL MILESTONES ON THE CONTINENT. Signs of the ice age are evident. Huge boulders are strewn along the waterfront from the Adelaide Street and Lakeshore Road area to Waverly Beach, which is located on the west side of Helena Street.
Along the shoreline at the opposite end of the Casino, there is a good-sized stretch of smooth black rock, with striation marks indicating the direction that a glacier took across the surface. The only other place where these striation marks can be seen is in Central Park, New York City. (I saw them). Drill holes were made on this rock, with plans to blow it up by the Buttonwood developers. The idea was to create a channel to an inland marina. They created and left an inland-sized pond behind the housing development along the west side of Bardol Road. Tons of rocks from this foiled project were dumped around the pier.
At some point in the Erie Beach history, our aboriginal ancestors found this a perfect site to live, work and build a longhouse. For years, kids would find arrowheads and weights used for fishing. These oval-shaped stones had holes drilled through in order to be attached to the nets used to trap fish. These aboriginal ancestors were miners and traders. They made arrowheads out of Bertie’s Chert and chipping beds can be seen in the waters of the Dance Hall.
The battle that ended the War of 1812 was fought Aug 15, 1814, at Snake Hill (Erie Beach). Artifacts such as cannonballs and a musket but plate were found around the pier.
Erie Beach, called Snake Hill Grove in the 1850s, hosted a considerable Black colony, one of three Black settlements located in Fort Erie. Bertie Hill Settlement and Little Africa are the other two.
Snake Hill Grove, later to be called Fort Erie Grove, received many slaves who escaped to freedom via the Underground Railway. They eventually moved inland, to more permanent places. Black camp meetings were held in the Grove, attended by hundreds of people from both sides of the border. Fried chicken dinners were prepared in the southern tradition and served.
In 1885, Dr. William B. Pierce bought the grove, primarily a picnic ground. In 1901, Pierce sold the area to Frederick J. Weber, who added the merry-go-round and the Figure-Eight. In 1910, Weber sold to Frank Bardol, who called the area Erie Beach Park. Bardol built the swimming pool, the largest in the world, with filtered and chlorinated (fresh) water pumped in regularly. There was a deep and shallow end to the pool, divided by a screen running to the bottom as well as a diving platform and lifeguard station. Johnny Weissmuller, an Olympic swimming champion and the Movies first Tarzan, was a lifeguard at the pool. Attractions included Mack Sennett Bathing Beauties in fancy diving and swimming exhibitions.
Bardol built the Erie Beach 65 room hotel, which burnt down in 1935. Public washrooms are located at the hotel’s original site. The cement work at Erie Beach is fantastic, parts o the original sidewalk leading up to the hotel is still visible. The best feature in the park was the $50,000 red roofed three-story Casino (Dance Hall) that he built on the shoreline. The main floor had change rooms and showers for about 250 people. The second floor held the dance floor with an overhanging platform which held the orchestra. The top floor housed the restaurant where peacocks were painted on some of the walls.
In the 1950s, when we were teenagers and gathered in the Dance Hall ruins, and when Joe Kenney, an Erie Beach boy, decided to walk across the highest beam spanning the building and when I begged some of the bigger boys to stop him and they wouldn’t, the only thing I could do and didn’t care what the others thought was to fold my hands and say out loud a “Hail Mary” and watch Joe spread his arm and walk the beam from one side to the other. The Town blew up the building in 1976.
There was a zoo featuring peacocks, wolves, wild pigs, and monkeys. The midway boasted rides such as the Blue Streak, the Wild Cat, Razzle Dazzle, the Lindy Loop, Dodgem Cars, and more. Special attractions were brought in such as the diving horses from Atlantic City.
The huge Stadium and Grandstand hosted many sports events that vied competitors from both sides of the border. In May of 1925, Chariot Races, Cossack, and Rough Riding were a feature event. Erie Beach Amusement Park was advertised as Ontario’s greatest Playground.
In August 1913, 45,000 people attended a Peace Celebration and in June 1917, close to 70,000 people visited within an eight-day span. In June 1919, 200,000 visited the Park, and in July 1922, more than 10,000 people attended the Fraternal Order of Eagles outing. By June 1924, the Park was averaging 1,000 children per day and 2,500 on Saturdays. In May 1925, Erie Beach was expecting 25,000 on opening day, and in June 1927 Erie Beach has parking for 5,000 autos. The Peace Bridge celebrated the opening of the Peace Bridge in 1927, at Erie Beach.
The doors closed on Erie Beach Park on Labour Day 1930, due to the depression. The Park remained in the hands of the Bardol family until the 1970s when it was sold to developers. Since 1930, Erie Beach has been a magical haven for generations of people, birds, and animals.
We, as citizens, can take some blame for this dire situation by becoming so complacent that we allowed this historic and significant treasure that benefitted so many for so long, to be exploited for so few.
Why destroy this priceless sanctuary for something of less value? We thank Marcie and the Voices of Fort Erie for their heroic fight to save Erie Beach, a treasured historic site, from development.
