CNHS Tourist Pagoda - Thunder Bay ON
Posted by: 
PeterNoG
N 48° 26.069 W 089° 13.088
16U E 335936 N 5366969
This Canadian National Historic Site is the Thunder Bay Tourist Pagoda, 170 Red River Road at North Water Street in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Waymark Code: WMF0G0
Location: Ontario, Canada
Date Posted: 08/02/2012
Views: 11
There is no plaque but www.pc.gc.ca gives the 'Approved Inscription: 164 Arthur Street, Thunder Bay, Ontario' as:
This unique building erected in 1909 by the city of Port Arthur is a reminder of the turn-of-the-century booster spirit and inter-city rivalry that characterized new Canadian cities. Like exhibition buildings of the period, its exotic form and flamboyant design by local architect H. Russell Halton attracted the attention of visitors. Originally used to distribute promotional literature about Port Arthur’s economic, industrial and social merits, the kiosk’s association with community promotion continued while it served as the office of the Port Arthur Board of Trade from 1913 to 1940.
Arthur Street would be a strange location for the Pagoda plaque since it is over 6 km south of the pagoda.
~ from HistoricPlaces.ca (visit link) ~ Thunder Bay Tourist Pagoda National Historic Site of Canada is an early tourism bureau built in a novelty design inspired by a mixture of classical and Asian architecture. An octagonal brick structure surrounded by a verandah, it has a pagoda-shaped roof with cupola and a columned entranceway surmounted by a carved beaver.
Thunder Bay Tourist Pagoda was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1986 because it symbolizes the themes of civic boosterism and inter-city rivalry in the early 20th century and it has an eccentric but carefully conceived design.
The Thunder Bay Tourist Pagoda was designed by local architect H. Russell Halton, and built by the Port Arthur Industrial Commission in 1909. It was an early tourism bureau designed to attract the attention of train and ship passengers traveling through Port Arthur, in order to promote the town's advantages as an industrial and tourism centre at a time when it's rival, nearby Fort William, was becoming an increasingly important transportation hub. The pagoda continued to be used as a tourism bureau until declining rail traffic made its future uncertain. By 1986 it had closed and its future remained in doubt until it eventually was restored as a heritage facility.
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