Historical: "Johansson's Bar"

I was attempting to catch a few extra winks of sleep yesterday morning when I had received a call from the St.Catharines Standard, asking for information on a local landmark called "Johansson's Bar". This was definitely worth waking up for!

The paper had seen my blog post from the end of September 2006, where I had a "Feature Hike" writeup on the "North and South Canal Loops. A friend of mine and I had hiked the entirety of the Merritt Trail, and I had completed a writeup as well as posted a good series of photos on my blog. You can view this entry at: http://wellerphoto.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html

Johansson's Bar is a long-forgotten about historic relic, turned in to small monument, and is located just off of Glendale Avenue, beside the Merritt Trail, and the old walls to the historic Second Welland Canal. Locals have vandalized the old monument by bringing along their spray paints and dabbling in a little bit of contemporary destructive art.

The Bar was used in the 1800's as a key tool in placing the limestone blocks that made up the walls of the historic Welland Canal. It now sits atop of a limestone block, hidden away, where many do not even know it is there.

To view the article written by Matthew Van Dongen at the St.Catharines Standard, you can do so online at:
http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=445563&catname=Local%20News&classif

Or you can click the below scanned article print:

Thanks to the St.Catharines Standard and to Matthew Van Dongen for the resource call, as well as for the awesome writeup of this historic relic!

Matthew can be reached at mvandongen@stcatharinesstandard.ca

~Tom