Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by Marcel Rousseau.
Some were previously published by the Orillia Museum of Art and History and in the book Postcard Memories Orillia.
The collapse of the wall on the west side of the Tudhope building during renovations in 2004 was not the first to take place at this building.
The Heywood Wakefield Company was located there in the early 1930s when the wall facing West Street collapsed during working hours.
In a written account of the event Mr. Hall, who was operating an embossing machine on the first floor of the four-storey building, recalls taking a break and running up four flights of stairs to exercise his limbs.
When he got to the top floor there was a terrific crash and the side of the building collapsed. About 40 tons of steel was stored on the top floor and fell through the floors to the ground floor.
Luckily no one was seriously hurt. About 30 people were on the assembly line on the second floor but everyone escaped serious injury. Only about 20 people went to the hospital with cuts and bruises.
A search was made for missing people and some were found buried under falling material. One boy that boarded with the Hall family could not be found but later turned up at home. After hearing the bang, he started running and didn’t stop until he got home.
The official investigation decided the cause was an explosion in the paint shop on the second floor, but most workers thought the weight of the steel and the vibrations from a train locomotive on the siding behind the building caused the collapse.
This photo was taken from inside the plant looking northeast over West Street. The recently demolished fire station would be later built on the empty lot and the Sir Sam Steele building with its clock tower can be seen in the distance.
