Street Car

Street Car on Main Street

This postcard, with a photograph taken looking south on Main Street, was originally from the collection of Jack Brumpton, a long time Port Stanley resident who passed away at the age of 102. The notation in his collection says that the man standing in the foreground wearing the long coat was Manuel Payne. Payne was an important man in Port Stanley in the late 1800s, acting as a railway agent, a telegraph and telephone operator, a custom’s agent and the village postmaster. His home, situated at 205 Main Street, and shown on the left of the photograph is now known as the Telegraph House.
The streetcar in the middle of the street would have been owned by the Southwest Traction Company which operated from 1907 to 1917. The white building on the east side of Main Street was Port Stanley’s custom house.