Remember This? Pump house on Gore Street

From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:

Throughout a city’s history, construction is constantly changing the look of a city as older buildings are demolished to make room for new projects. The Gore Street Pump House is one such building.  Built-in 1916, the Romanesque Revival style building was designed by Albert E Pickering. 

Albert Pickering was an assistant engineer under the Lake Superior Power Company, which was created under Francis H. Clergue.

In 1911, Pickering became the Superintendent of Tagona Water and Light Company, which was spit off from the Lake Superior Power Company. When the Tagona Water and Light Company was purchased by the City of Sault Ste. Marie in 1914, Pickering became Manager of the City Water and Light Department. In 1917, Pickering left to become Manager of the Great Lakes Power Company and eventually Vice President of the Great Lakes Power Company and International Transit Company. 

When the Gore Street Pump House was constructed, it was a combined sewage pumping station and transformer station at the junction of Sault Ste. Marie and Steelton. The Pump House was a unique building and oddly trapezoidal shaped.  There were no support columns but rather 8-inch steel in the concrete floor that connected to steel girders.  Steel columns that supported the girders were embedded in the outer brickwork and were hidden behind a five-foot-high brick-faced wainscoting and plaster walls.  The building was adorned with pilasters, decorative brickwork, keystones, a tower, and a rose window. 

The second floor housed the laboratories in 1920, which continued until the early 1960s. Work in these labs included the chlorination of the city’s water supply and disease labs, which were under the supervision of Dr. Nelson Graham from 1920 to 1947.

In 1947, Stanley G. Trevor took Dr. Graham’s position at the labs. He is quoted as saying, “When the first provincial laboratory was first opened in the city’s first sewage pumping station in 1920, it was only supposed to be a temporary location. Yet for several years we performed our duties in cramped quarters and endured a fragrance that proved unbearable at times, for our visitors.” 

In 1961, Mr. Trevor moved to a new lab at the corner of Brock and Albert Street. During his time at the Gore Street Pump House, he worked to battle the grey-patch ringworm epidemic. 

Over the years the building fell out of use and, in the late 1980s, plans for its demolition began being discussed when city council was looking at the waterfront development plan. Heritage committees like LACAC tried to have the building designated as a heritage building citing its historical importance to the city’s early development.

Even Albert Pickering’s daughter Mildred made a plea to the City Council in September of 1996 to save her father’s building. However, a Sault Star article on Sept. 28, 1996, stated “The building itself is near collapse, the roof is gone the interior is obviously devastated by water that has leaked into the building.”

On Sept. 23, 1996, City Council decided to demolish the building because of visibility issues and for the future re-alignment of Bay Street. 

In early October, Avery Construction was commissioned to tear the building down which took about three hours. However, Bill Pletsch of the city engineering department stated the building’s rose window and some of the basement sandstone would be salvaged.             

Each week, the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library and its Archives provide SooToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past.

Find out more of what the Public Library has to offer at www.ssmpl.ca and look for more "Remember This?" columns here.