Norfolk Street

How long a time lies in one little word! 

Norfolk Street is one of a group of streets in the south end of the city named for counties in Ontario. The group includes Brant, Perth, Norfolk, Elgin, Bruce and Simcoe, all of which run east and west, and Essex which runs north and south. Grey and Peel, once part of the street plan in that area, have disappeared. These streets appeared on the 1922 city map, but some of them were laid out much earlier.

Norfolk County, for which Norfolk Street was named, was established by John Graves Simcoe on the shore of Lake Erie in 1792. Its name was taken from Norfolk County in England, where it is said to have originated fom the "North Folk" who inhabited that eastern maritime county. 

National Stadium always had a shallow right field, initially 285 feet to the fence. That distance was eventually shortened to 277 feet. In his book Railway Stratford Revisited, author Dean Robinson shares the story that it was “built shallow to complement the hitting habits of Irish Miskimmons, a 17-year old import from Hamilton. True or not, for years its outer boundary was known as Miskimmons fence, and Irish responded with a memorable career. His first season in Stratford was 1934, and it remained his favourite. He opened the new stadium with a two-run home run onto the ninth fairway of the city’s municipal golf course. Thirteen years later, the left-handed hitting catcher won the Intercounty batting title with a .415 average. It should be noted, traffic over Miskimmons fence was not one way and, with regularity, smaller, harder, whiter balls would fly into the stadium from that same ninth fairway.” 

Irish Miskimmons, at the left, was the first player to hit a home run in the new National Stadium, in 1934.

Eventually, the grandstand at the stadium was covered, and in 1948, lights were installed. At the first night game in June 1948, catcher Billy Flick (see Morenz Drive), who had come to Stratford to apprentice as a blacksmith and welder in the railway shops in 1943, hit two home runs as the Nationals blanked defeated London Majors 9-0. 

Billy flick, left, who came to Stratford to play baseball, also became one of Stratford's foremost senior league hockey stars.

In the early 1950s, Bill Inkol (CJCS Albert Street) called the baseball games for CJCS radio from a folding chair and card table atop the grandstand. In 1952, the CNRA Nationals won the Intercounty Baseball League championship (see picture below) . 

Born in Stratford in 1955, Larry Landreth played minor baseball in the city and then became the first Stratford native to pitch in the big leagues, for Canada’s Montreal Expos.     * See Flashback Article:  Larry Lanreth.

After the CNR shops closed, the CNRA membership voted to turn the stadium over to the city. The original grandstand was replaced in the late 1960s, and the grounds reworked and drained. The Stratford Hillers won ICBL championships in the late 1980s. (see below). In addition to baseball and track meets, through the years the stadium hosted high school football games and concerts. Source: Gord Conroy

Rex Bartlett, carmaker, 1917

At one time, Stratford had a place in the early days of the thriving automobile manufacturing business. Reginald Cleveland (Rex) Bartlett, an imaginative Stratford engineer, successfully designed, built, and marketed several of his inventions. One of those was, for a time, a revolutionary automobile, a car with air suspension and four-wheel brakes. 

Most cars had two-wheel brakes only, and they were mechanical; there was no power assist. The pressure applied in braking depended on the pressure a driver could apply to the brake pedal. Having had personal experience, I can tell you it could be a bit scary at times. If you were going a little too fast, and had to make a panic stop for some reason, it could be interesting. I experienced that situation at Huron Street and Forman Avenue, and had to jump a curb with the car. I followed that with driving across someone's front lawn and back onto the road.