Posted Aug 3, 2021, 4:10 PM
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Ham-burgher
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Hamilton
Posts: 6,521
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Today's Spec has a history of the park with some photos.
The Gore — A tiny park we love to shake our heads about
https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilto...gore-park.html
Mark McNeil
The Hamilton Spectator
Tue., Aug. 3, 2021
1860 opening ceremony:
/https://www.thespec.com/content/dam/thespec/news/hamilton-region/flashbacks-hamilton/2021/08/03/hamilton-gore-park/opening.jpg)
Same year:
/https://www.thespec.com/content/dam/thespec/news/hamilton-region/flashbacks-hamilton/2021/08/03/hamilton-gore-park/_1860.jpg)
Early-1900s:
/https://www.thespec.com/content/dam/thespec/news/hamilton-region/flashbacks-hamilton/2021/08/03/hamilton-gore-park/fountain.jpg)
2015:
/https://www.thespec.com/content/dam/thespec/news/hamilton-region/flashbacks-hamilton/2021/08/03/hamilton-gore-park/night.jpg)
Historical notes from the story:
Like the Macdonald statue, the park got off to a rocky start. George Hamilton (1788-1836), the man for whom the city is named, owned a triangle of land and a fellow named Nathaniel Hughson (1755-1837) owned another triangle of property beside it.
The deal was to put the two pieces together and form a civic square. But Hughson reneged, leaving a tiny wedge of space that became a dump.
The park was a favourite topic of the late local historian and Hamilton Public Library archivist Margaret Houghton who had an endless supply of Gore stories, not the least of which was the reason for its name.
It had nothing to do with anyone named Gore, she would say. It was the shape. A gore is a word for a triangular piece of land.
...
— Gore Park is not the kind of place to fly a kite or throw a ball. It’s less than three-quarters of a hectare in size — more of a parkette or a park pretender. Another city would probably have called it Gore Place or Gore Centre or stuck with “The Gore” which is what it was originally called. To get an idea of how small Gore Park is, consider that it is only 2.5 per cent the size of Gage Park.
— Through the early to mid 1800s, The Gore became an increasing blight on the community, an eyesore of garbage and failed plans. It was only after the announcement that Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Queen Victoria, was coming to Hamilton in 1860 that a massive cleanup was ordered.
— When the park was officially opened by the Prince of Wales in Sept. 1860, it stretched only from James to Hughson. In 1893, it was expanded eastward to John Street. In 1983, a final section was added between John and Catharine streets that morphs into a short-term parking area in front of the Royal Connaught.
— The Queen Victoria Statue near James Street was officially dedicated in May 1908 in a ceremony that drew more than 22,000 people. A time capsule was enshrined in its cornerstone that has copies of city directories, newspapers, flags and other memorabilia. The Queen is portrayed with “Leo the Lion” that has had its tail go missing at least once.
— The park’s 1923 Cenotaph, which is normally used for Remembrance Day ceremonies, also has a time capsule of sorts. Inside the structure is a metal tube that contains a scroll with the names of 1,800 Canadian who died in the First World War. It was rediscovered during a restoration of the Cenotaph in 2014.
— Gore Park’s first fountain was built more than 160 years ago to trumpet the city new waterworks system that managed to pump fresh water from Lake Ontario to downtown. It was a prideful display of conspicuous consumption to show we had so much water that we could afford to waste it. There has been a total of four fountains: The original two-bowled Victorian-style one from 1860, two modern versions that are best forgotten about, and then finally a replica of the first that was built for the city’s sesquicentennial in 1996. That last one ran into some rusting problems and had to go through a major renovation.
— The park has hosted ill-advised events: In January 1954, a massive bird shoot took place with 122 shotgun-toting hunters taking part. More than 2,500 starlings and pigeons were killed. But miraculously no humans were injured. Also notable, was the city’s infamous 1918 “Tank Day” War Bond fundraiser that saw more than 30,000 people pack the park. That was a bad idea during the Spanish Flu Pandemic and led to a severe spread of the virus over the following weeks.
— Trees have been a sore point in Gore Park. There was a huge uproar in 1921 when a tree planted by the Prince of Wales during his 1860 visit was chopped down. The city argued it was dangerous. And then in 1983, there was the infamous tree massacre. Chainsaw crews got carried away in their zeal to clear the landscape for a new redesign and levelled the place. The park looked like it had been bombed. And it was made worse by some concrete block buildings that went up in place of the century-old greenery. The structures were torn down in shame, with city planners going back to the drawing board on the entire project.
— And yet through it all, the thing that was probably most noticed by people outside of Hamilton were the park’s former subterranean washrooms. In 1981, the national publication, Today Magazine, praised the Gore lavatories as being one of the country’s great assets. They were built in 1913 in European tradition with shining tiles and ceramic fixtures and attendants who handed out towels. But, by the 1980s, the lustre was wearing off and the washrooms became more known for illicit activities. They were closed in 1984 and then finally infilled in 2014. Today they sit entombed for future archeologists to go through, perhaps as part of a larger study about how a very small park has figured so prominently in the history of Hamilton.
full story here
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). Put into perspective, the population of the city in 1890 had yet to reach 45,000!
/https://www.thespec.com/content/dam/thespec/news/hamilton-region/2021/08/14/protesters-topple-sir-john-a-macdonald-statue-in-downtown-hamilton/unity_rally_main_pic.jpg)
/https://www.thespec.com/content/dam/thespec/news/hamilton-region/2021/08/14/protesters-topple-sir-john-a-macdonald-statue-in-downtown-hamilton/unity_rally7.jpg)
/https://www.thespec.com/content/dam/thespec/news/hamilton-region/2021/08/14/protesters-topple-sir-john-a-macdonald-statue-in-downtown-hamilton/unity_rally9.jpg)
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