City Daily Photo Theme Day: Local History

The first day of each month is a theme day for members of City Daily Photo. This month that theme is Local History. Check what other members are featuring for today right here.

Lebreton Flats is an area lying just west of the downtown core, a place with a lot of history. Here, to the south of the Canadian War Museum, is a landscaped parkland which looks at that history. Its central aspect is a memorial fountain to a woman who once lived here, Lilias Fleck, erected by her family. It was rediscovered in 2013 by workers doing soil clean up and restored. It was lost in the Great Fire of 1900, and found in an area a distance from where it had stood. How that happened remains a mystery. 

Lebreton Flats was largely a working place neighbourhood, with its workers tied to the lumber mills that were around here. Panels tell the story of the place.

The Great Fire would ravage much of this area, being brought to a halt here as well. But the area would never be the same, and by the 1950s, the area was being referred to as a slum. The federal government ended up expropriating the entire area and razing it. One can still, with a careful eye, see the hint of foundations of homes here and there.

Mrs. Fleck's son in law, Thomas Ahern, would have a big effect on the city, building a company with his business partner W. Y. Soper that brought electricity through the city and other improvements.

One last look. The War Museum is over at left, while at centre, across the intersection, is the National Holocaust Monument.