This week, our local history feature stays with some of the facts Karen Bachmann found in early assessment rolls for the Town of Timmins.
The local historian says that in September, 1911, Noah Timmins was rebuilding the Hollinger Mine after the Great Porcupine Fire had roared through a few weeks earlier.
He also had some lots surveyed in what is now downtown, and started selling them.
“And the first person to buy one of those lots was J.P. McLaughlin, and he was grocer in town and he thought this is not a bad thing because I’m really looking to make some money here,” Bachmann recounts. “The museum actually has the original cheque that he signed over for that lot, which was $250.00.”
You can see in your own mind, the size of that townsite.
“It ran from First Ave. to Sixth Ave., and then from Spruce St. to Birch St.,” says Bachmann. “It also included the Hill District and included Tamarack and Hemlock, because a lot of the superitendents from the Hollinger Mine lived up in that area.”
Next week: Some of the people whose names were in the original assessment rolls.
