Man finds historic treasures while working on a building in Mississauga
Published February 13, 2023 at 3:17 pm
A piece of history was discovered while upgrading a Mississauga office.
A retired Port Credit restaurant owner, Manny, says he found three historic items on the second level of his building at 55 and 57 Lakeshore Road East.
The second floor was used as office space. Manny was removing old radiators, which didn’t work and had been replaced by electrical baseboards, when he found what appears to be two wooden darts and an advertisement for books for sale from 1958.
The advertisement card fell down as soon as he removed one radiator. He believes someone may have set it on top of the radiator back in 1958 or 59 and then if fell behind it.
“All that time it was behind the radiator,” Manny, who prefers to use only his first name, tells insauga.com.
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The card promotes a Dominion Bureau of Statistics book on Canada — on sale for $1. On the reverse side, there are other books for sale including Arts in Canada and Native Trees of Canada.
The wooden darts or arrows were found behind another radiator. Manny believes they could be darts because of their shape.
“I’m not sure exactly what they are myself.”
He also says “old-timers” told him the upstairs of the building was once a three-lane bowling alley. He thought they may have also had a dart board as a kind of recreation space.
Manny found the items about 10 years ago but just recently posted the find on the Facebook group Port Credit Life. He enjoys history and thought others might be interested as well.
Manny ran Golden West Restaurant, a popular Port Credit spot, in the 1980s. His father purchased the building in 1963. Manny has a blueprint that dates the building to 1951. Even before his father bought the building, the first floor was the Golden West Restaurant.
Manny and his partner sold the restaurant business. It continued as Golden West but later became The Harp and it’s now Door 55.
Always interested in history, Manny had historic photos of Port Credit on the walls in the Golden West. He recalls a customer once recognizing herself and her brother in an old photo of them as children in the harbour area.
“She started crying her eyes out.”
Turns out it was the third anniversary of her brother’s death.
And Manny running the restaurant and getting involved with the community.
“I had a lot of good memories.”
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