LONG BRANCH CHRONICLES

Strange creatures we are.

Walk into a room of whispering colleagues and our primal curiosities either pick up conversations of juicy gossip or financial bravados. The tabloids exploit our human weaknesses to a finely twined thread of literary pulp. Romance and money have been bedfellows since our beginning of time.

To be fair though, this edition of the Long Branch Chronicles is more about ‘local green backs’ than cuddly credenzas .

Imagine a hundred years ago in Long Branch lining up at the bank tellers in one of the two Dominion Banks. Ears perked, eyes sharpened, stories seeded the talk of the village. The who’s who of banking patrons, The Eastwoods, The Wrights, The Allens, The Robins, The Orpens interlaced with residents, shop keepers, and tourists painted the economic landscape.

To put this in perspective, the 1920’s was the time to forget the horrors of WWI and the astounding global loss of life to the Spanish Flu (500,000,000 infected world wide). Our COVID soup is bland in comparison.

The roaring Twenties were celebrant, extravagant, carefree, fun, and most of all pushed the world to financial collapse in 1929.

Spend, spend, spend, buy stock investments, learn new dances like the Charleston and the Collegiate, buy or build a new house, go to the movies, buy new appliances like washing machines, radios, phonographs and vinyl records, sewing machines, bet at the Long Branch racetrack, buy a new motorcar and host a gin party. Money and easy credit fuelled the flames of the roaring Twenties even in Long Branch. busy, alright, notwithstanding industrial and commercial expansions. The first bank in Long Branch was a wooden structure on the southeast corner of Long Branch Avenue and Lake Shore Blvd. Today the same location houses the Toronto Dominion Bank in the Watermark Clock Building (The Toronto and Dominion Banks amalgamated in 1955).

To handle the growing demand for financial support and tendering, a second Dominion Bank was built on the southeast corner of 40th St. and Lake Shore Blvd . It was a brick structure complete with a walk-in vault. Today the former Dominion Bank is the Fair Grounds Organic Cafe. It also was home to the Long Branch Meat market for decades.

The history of the Dominion Bank goes back to 1871, launched under the leadership of James Austin. For those of you who are familiar with the Davenport area of Toronto, James Austin’s Mansion is Spadina House on Spadina Road. Just to the south, Sir Henry Pellet’s Casa Loma is built on Austin Terrace in Austin’s namesake.

Before the Bank of Canada became the sole issuer of legal Canadian currency in 1944 the Dominion Bank bank note was the face of money in Long Branch for decades. (see illustration). The buying power of a Five Dollar Note in the 1920’s was impressive but the inflation rate was 15.6%!

Movie ticket: 15 cents. Gallon of Gasoline: 33 cents. Dozen Eggs: 47 cents. Bread: 12 cents. Postage First Class: 2 cents. Sugar 5 lbs: 35 cents. Bacon 1 lb: 47 cents. Cup of home brewed coffee: 2 cents. Entrance to the Long Branch Race Track: 1 dollar.

So the next time you are sipping java at Fair Grounds in Long Branch, the walls are talking and not just about “bean counting”. BILL ZUFELT

Long Branch Resident and Chair of the History and Culture Committee Long Branch Neighbourhood Association bill.zufelt@lbna.ca