This ongoing series from Barrie Historical Archive curator Deb Exel shows old photos from the collection and one from the present day, as well as the story behind them.
Mulcaster Street, one of Barrie’s original streets, was also known as Market Street in 1847, and the area where Mulcaster met Collier Street was known as Market Square.
In the 1840s, the Simcoe Agricultural Society began holding an annual fair on this site and eventually entrusted the Market Square to Barrie town council in 1854.
Town council engaged Toronto architect Joseph Sheard and local contractor Alexander Graham to design and build a proper structure on the former fairground. By 1856, council was holding its meetings in a grand new building in Market Square, on Collier Street, overlooking Market Street below.
The Saturday farmers' market at today’s Barrie City Hall was established in 1857 when the town set up stalls and weigh scales, creating a centralized location for merchants to sell their wares. Farmers no longer had to go door to door, or direct to shopkeepers, to sell their produce; customers could now come to them at the new public marketplace.
In 1877, the market building was enlarged and given a stunning new Second Empire appearance, an update that added the extravagantly ornate cornices, friezes, ironwork cresting, splendid windows. It was a magnificent building with a commanding view of lower Mulcaster Street down to the bay.
The market building retained most of its impressive features and architectural detail for many years.
In the mid-1940s, however, several outcomes were being considered for the market building or town hall. An offer to sell the building for use as a factory was rejected, as were plans (developed back in 1928), to retrofit the town hall with municipal offices complete with an auditorium, to replace the concert space lost with the opera house, when a fire destroyed its upper floor in 1926.
For just over two years, from 1945 to 1947, the second floor of the town hall had been rented to the Radio Valve Company of Canada, an affiliate of Canadian General Electric, and used to assemble radio tube parts. Approximately 60 young women were producing around 800 tubes per day at the height of operation, before the business was moved back to Toronto.
During that time, the notion of remodelling town hall for municipal use surfaced again, and in the summer of 1946 council was moving ahead with a modern renovation of the landmark building.
Before the end of the same year, a new gravel and pitch roof replaced the distinctive existing roof with its ornate dormer windows and intricate iron work. The current market space in the town hall was needed for offices, so in March 1947, the vendors were relocated to the Armoury on Mulcaster Street, which had been used as a public works shed previously.
The market that had been located at market square for the past 90 years, now had a new home.
Meanwhile, the transformation of the iconic market building continued, incorporating requirements such as an elevator, and a radio tower to accommodate the Hydro Electric Power Commission, who had signed a 10-year lease for space on the second and third floors, for their regional offices.
Cost of the renovation was growing: exceeding what was available in the budget and reserves, resulting in the need to have taxpayers approve a debenture of $89,000 to cover the $159,000 price tag for town hall's makeover — which had not even included council chambers in the design!
A public holiday was declared at noon on Nov. 10, 1948, to mark the opening of the ‘new’ town hall. The 3 p.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony by Mayor Grant Mayor was followed by plenty of noise: sirens, rockets, fire bells, a seven-gun salute and an RCAF flyover.
The debenture bylaw passed easily in December even though town hall's overhaul was still not complete, signalling that the people of Barrie accepted the "progressive" new look for their municipal building.
The town hall remained in use until 1985, when the City of Barrie moved their municipal offices to the former Municipal Savings and Loan building, just east of the old structure.
The former market building was demolished in 1985.
Cobblestone embedded in the street now traces the foundation and a metal arch outlines the shape of the old market building which once stood on this site.
