EPISODE 297 FORGOTTEN LITTLE IRON BRIDGE ….FIFTH LINE AND STEELES AVENUE, NEAR MILTON… MARCH 27, 2021
alan skeoch
March 27, 2021
THIS IS A STORY ABOUT A LITTLE IRON BRIDGE…DOOMED I SUPPOSE
(but on the other side there may be a yellow brick road anD the tin man)
Which picture do you find more interesting.? The new bridge under the 401 or the LITTLE IRON BRIDGE…Both of images are within a few
hundred feet of each other on the Fifth Line of Halton County and
Steeles Avenue.
CREATING A WORLD CLASS DISTRIBUTING CENTRE
Great Euclid gravel truck and a squadron of D 9 Caterpillar bulldozers have been levelling the land
for months. Results are apparent driving south
of Steeles on the Fifth line of Halton.
Immense warehouses have been erected. Most of them are larger than our whole farm. Imagine 25 acres
covered cement upon which are mounted structural steel be beams 30 feet high… sheathed… with
a few very austere windows and doors. This is a haven for hundreds of 18 wheelers unloading, sorting
an reloading the bits And pieces of things we really need and think we think we really need.
One warehouse is so large that I cannot even get a picture of it..at a distance it seems to cover
100 acres … entrance only allows 18 wheelers. But they cannot get there because of the
little iron bridge.
Let me tell you the site of these huge windowless warehouses is very disconcerting. Especially for
those of us who remember the farms that once were here.
One farm on this site I remember so
clearly. Auction sale of everything. A cold spring day like today. And Marjorie trusted me with Andrew
who was just a little tike…maybe 6 years old. “Look after yourself, Andrew, I am busy bidding.”
He disappeared into the threshing floor of the big bank barn. Escaped my notice until an hour or so
later when my parental duty started to get to me.
“Andrew, where are you?”
“UP here, Dad…look up.”
And there he was walking along a barn beam 30 or 40 feet above me. I forget that all barns had
access ladders built into the structures. Andrew found the ladder. And he came down without
trouble. The trouble occurred when I came home and told Marjorie about Andrew’s climbing skills.
At this moment there is a bend in the fifth line where the little iron bridge
sits clothed in trees and shrubs but no foliage. With leaves the bridge disappears. I bet the
plans include the demolition of this last vestige of a bygone era. Road is narrow
so very hard to stop … best to park a little distant. Marjorie would not let me cross the
iron bridge…fear I would fall through. If I was alone I would have taken my chances.
Why? Because on the other side in the deep bruh there may well be ‘a yellow brick road’…and
maybe the tin man, straw man and Judy Garland.!!
You think not? Take a second look…there is a big yellow sign.
alan skeoch
Mach 2021