We’re sticking with the topic of early houses in Timmins, this week in our local history feature.
Arguably the most iconic are the red or green tarpaper houses built by the Hollinger Mine for its employees.
Museum director-curator Karen Bachmann notes that other mines had employee housing, right on their properties. One of them was the Dome.
“They also had the Dome Extension,” she says, “which was a wonderful little community outside of the Dome that there for their workers as well.”
Similar townsites were established at the Pamour, Delnite, McIntyre and Paymaster Mines.
While many of the houses were very plain and utilitarian. the higher up you were in the hierarchy, the bigger and fancier the company-supplied homes were.
Bachmann says the Hill District in Timmins is one example. Supervisors and superintendents and their families were accommodated there.
“Some of those large homes were built again by the Hollinger Mine. Places on Tamarack St., on Balsam, also were homes that were developed by the Hollinger.”
We’ll pick it up next week with the beauty of some of the homes, and how it’s been maintained.