Port Stanley Postcards with Stories – Heritage Port Stanley

Fishing Industry in Port Stanley

This postcard shows an example of the commercial fishing industry in Port Stanley.The postmark on this card is November 9, 1911. This was one of...

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...

Fishing Tugs in Port Stanley Harbour

Fishing Tugs in Port Stanley harbour The postmark on this card is April 21,1911. The fish tugs lining the west side of the harbour, with...

Port Stanley’s Third School

This postcard was written on October 18, 1912, four years after the school was built. It was Port Stanley’s third school, with two classrooms and...

Franklin House

This postcard is postmarked March 13, 1911, and bears a stamp of King Edward VII. The photograph was taken by F. Loftus who was a...

Willow Beach

None of the cottages shown in this postcard can be recognized today. The date of the postmark is 1912, and the long dresses on the...

Orchard Beach from Hillcrest

Orchard Beach from Hillcrest This postcard is postmarked February 17, 1912 and shows a view of the summer cottage area east of the Port Stanley...

Roller Coaster

This postcard, postmarked 1911, shows a large wooden roller coaster which stood just to the west of the incline railway on the north side of...

New P.M. Bridge

The New P.M. Bridge was a swing bridge built to carry the Pere Marquette trains over Kettle Creek. It would slowly pivot open to let...

Marquette and Bessemer Number 2

This postcard shows the ill fated Marquette and Bessemer Number 2 which sank on Lake Erie in December of 1909. It was carrying coal cars...

Methodist Church and Parsonage

The church shown on this postcard was built in 1888. In 1925 at the time of church union in Canada it became a United Church....

Cargo Ship Shenango No.1

Most residents of Port Stanley know about the ill fated Bessemer coal ferry, but few have heard of the Shenango #1. There is no postmark...

Erie Rest

The Vigilant was a Canadian government patrol boat. She was 145 feet long, and had a top speed of 21 knots. It is said she carried four...

Casino & Bathing Beach

There are many different postcards which show this building, and we will be including many of them on this web site. The postcard shown here has...

Stanley Beach Casino

There are several postcards on our web site which show the Port Stanley Dance Casino. It was destroyed by fire in 1932, along with the...

Hill Crest

This postcard depicts, in the foreground, the Liberty Hill Club and the weather observation tower on the bluff east of the village, an area known...

In 1911, Port Stanley's commercial fishing industry peaked, with herring being shipped to major cities, while the town hall, built in 1877, stood in the background.

This 1911 photo of Main Street, once owned by Jack Brumpton, shows Manuel Payne, a key figure in Port Stanley, with the streetcar from the Southwest Traction Company and the Port Stanley custom house in the background.

In 1911, steam-driven fish tugs lined the harbour, while gill nets boosted the fishing industry; the building atop Hillcrest later became the Hillcrest Inn.

Built in 1908, Port Stanley's third school featured classrooms and a library, with the boys’ entrance shown here; its stone plaque was preserved after the building’s demolition in 1972.

In 1911, local photographer F. Loftus captured the Franklin House, a Port Stanley hotel until 1918, while a large dog, often seen around town, appeared in the foreground.

This 1912 photograph shows a pre-WWI scene of Bessie Street, formerly part of Willow Beach, named after Manuel Payne’s daughter, with cottages and long dresses typical of the era.

Taken on February 17, 1912, this photo captures the summer cottage area east of Port Stanley's business section, known as Orchard Beach once an orchard and features the early breakwaters built to combat erosion, which later claimed much of the land.

Postmarked in 1911, this photo showcases the large wooden roller coaster that once stood west of the incline railway, near what is now Edith Cavell Boulevard, where rides cost just 5 cents according to Jack Brumpton, the original owner of the card.

The Incline Railway once ferried beachgoers and picnickers between the bluff and shore, an iconic ride remembered in old cottage drawers and summer tales.

Before 1913, this sturdy steel railway bridge carried trains across Kettle Creek, replacing its wooden predecessor and echoing the age of steam and steel.

The Marquette and Bessemer No. 2 sank in a fierce December storm in 1909, one of three ferries by that name, and a final voyage that claimed Captain Robert McLeod.

Built in 1888, this early church stood through union and renovation, its parsonage now gone, but its spirit still rooted in the village's past.

Rarely linked to Port Stanley, the Shenango #1 carried coal across Lake Erie, until fire and ice sealed her fate in 1904.

The Vigilant, a swift and armed patrol boat, once cruised these waters, its guns and presence a clear message to poachers from the south shore.

Once home to Canada’s largest indoor dance floor, this grand hall echoed with five-cent jitney dances and the music of Guy Lombardo, long before 'casino' meant slot machines.

Lost to fire in 1932, the Port Stanley Dance Casino and its merry-go-round live on in memories, like a boy sifting ashes for glass horse eyes.

Perched on the Hillcrest bluff, the Liberty Hill Club offered cottage life with elegant dining, overseen by a first-class steward in the summer of 1909.

Once the fastest ship on the Great Lakes, the steamer Theodore Roosevelt steamed into Port Stanley before serving in war and returning to carry passengers across Lake Erie.

The 1908 grain elevator stood tall beside the harbour, watched over by the coal-carrying steamship Simla navigating Lake Erie’s busy waters.

Orchard Beach once stretched far beyond today’s shoreline, where summer cottages, like the Darch family’s, stood before erosion slowly claimed the land.

Port Stanley Harbor once featured a wooden grain elevator by Kettle Creek, serving local millers before fire gave way to concrete replacements.

An early glimpse of Joseph Street Hill, capturing the intersection before 1911 and the arrival of the Stirling Bank building.

The Stanley Beach Casino’s twin turrets rise above Port Stanley’s original boardwalk and historic 1906 pier, capturing a glimpse of the village’s early charm.

This early railway scene, dated before 1915 by its lack of electrification, shows a hand-colored view with vivid red and green highlights.

Though the lens stretched the distance, the twin turrets of the Stanley Beach Casino stood just south of Kettle Creek’s mouth, anchoring the shoreline in 1910.

An early view of Hillcrest and Orchard Beach, where families like the Smiths and Nashs once summered and a mystery building still invites curiosity.

Hill Crest, now called Little Beach, offers a glimpse of Port Stanley’s shoreline likely captured around the 1940s.

The 1908 Port Stanley Bathing Beach features an earlier lighthouse design, distinct from the one that stands today at the pier’s end

The Hillcrest Inn garden, a beloved 1930s-40s Port Stanley spot, was famously guarded by the Shipps’ playful Dalmatians who loved carrying balloons.

Port Stanley’s roller coaster, remembered as both red and green, hints at the colorful memories and mysteries of its past.

Looking south over Port Stanley before 1915, this hand-colored view, touched with red and green captures the village before railway electrification.

This 1912 view of Hillcrest captures a mysterious cottage east of the village that some wonder might have become the Kettle Creek Inn.

Overlooking the village from Hillcrest, the Liberty Hill Club once welcomed summer visitors with cottage lots, a grand dining hall, and family rooms run by a first-class steward.

A charming lakeside scene with a boat-top water slide and offshore diving platform, likely from the era of rented wool bathing suits and summer fun.

Long dresses and early streets frame this pre-WWI view, with buildings still standing at Bridge and Bostwick named for Port Stanley’s founding father, John Bostwick.

An early view of Port Stanley harbour before the grain elevator stood, where liquor was shipped during dry days, fish became fertilizer, and brooms were built by the bay.

Seen from the bluff, Port Stanley’s figure-eight roller coaster once marked the shoreline so prominently it appeared on a 1909 harbour chart before fire claimed it in 1935.

Memories differ on the color of Port Stanley’s roller coaster, green to some, red to others, perhaps repainted over time, or simply tinted by early photo coloring.

Postcards With Story