by Melissa Shaw
Collingwood Museum
On October 10, 1914, construction on downtown Collingwood’s iconic Federal Building was temporarily halted as workers put down their hammers and chisels to pose for this photograph. Seven workers appear atop the building’s marble Corinthian columns, while a dapper gentleman perches on a piece of lumber at the structure’s base smoking a pipe.
The hand-painted signage for White’s hardware store appears on the brick building to the right (now Loblaw’s parking lot), and you can just see the edge of the window signage for the Enterprise & Messenger newspaper office on the left (now a Chinese restaurant).
The lone bicycle propped in the foreground appropriately foreshadows the numerous bikes that would be left along the sidewalk for years to come as residents retrieved their mail from the post office housed in the majestic building along with a customs house.
Construction had begun earlier in 1914, with the Beaux-Arts design inspired by the State Finance Building in Havana, Cuba.
Today the well-preserved Federal Building on Collingwood’s main street houses federal government offices and a Service Canada Centre. Inside, visitors can admire the original grand marble staircase and intricate stained-glass dome bearing the coats of arms of the four levels of government, including the Town of Collingwood. ❧
