The McIntyre Community Centre is being officially designated a heritage site this week. So for our local history feature, local historian Karen Bachmann tells us about the iconic Schumacher building.
The Mac was built in 1938 under the direction of R.J. Ennis and J.P. Bickell who were in management at the McIntyre Mine.
“It was something to service their local people and their local miners,” says Bachmann. “You paid a membership fee for one year. Then that gave you access to the rink, the auditorium, the gymnasium in there, the bowling alley that was downstairs, the curling club and anything else that happened in periphery of that.”
Bachmann says the building very quickly became a focal point of Schumacher, and to this day is the sports and cultural centre of the entire city of Timmins.
“The inauguration in December of 1938 saw the Toronto Maple Leafs come up and play an exhibition game,” Bachmann adds. “The summer skating school started there, which was something that – there were only two skating schools in North America that ran during the summer, one was in Salt Lake City, Utah and the other was in Schumacher.”
Canadian skaters training for international competition would come to The Mac. In exchange for their own ice time, they taught skating to the kids of the community.
