Timmins history: Which came first, the building or the street?

We’ll take a chicken-or-egg look at Timmins history this week, as we wrap up our series on early roads in the city.

So what came first? – The building or the street?

Algonquin Boulevard was originally Fourth Avenue.  Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann says it has always been the main road through Timmins.

“City Hall moved there in 1938, plus the post office in 1938,” she notes. “The fire department was on that land, the hospital was on that land, so it just naturally sort of bubbled up.”

As the Porcupine Mining Camp developed, all transportation connections to the south grew in importance.

Bachmann tells us that in 1928, there was a caravan from Timmins to Queen’s Park, to impress upon the government how important it was to maintain the Ferguson Highway.

“There are great photographs of people leaving Timmins all in this long train of Model T Fords and all those kinds of things, putt-putting their way to Toronto.”

Today, the Ferguson Highway is known as Highway 11, and of course, it connects to the city via Highway 101 from Matheson.