Ontario Fire Towers
The 100 ft. Hungerford Tower Circa Jan. 1959 located at the site of the Tweed District Headquarters and now the Tweed Water Tower. Thank you to Doug Mumford and the Tweed Heritage Centre for the photos. It was painted international orange in the mid 60s like most of the rest of Ontario's old towers.
Before the Hungerford Tower was removed in 1996 this photo was taken. Apparently Elvis Presley resides on the Hungerford Road too according to recent Elvis sighting reports. To the left you can see the cupola removal taking place prior to its being stationed behind the Tweed Heritage Centre. There is a great article about the day of this cupola removal in the Tweed News. If u do a websearch you will find it.
Here are some photos taken on a spring fire tower trek I took this spring with my friend Gordon Morrison north of Tweed. Way back in the bush on the Lingham Lake Rd east of Cooper one comes upon an old lodge (now a monastery for Tibetan monks) on the north side. This is the location of Mount Moriah. We made it up the 1st hill to a breathtaking view of Hastings County but could not find the tower footings anywhere, so we proceeded down a valley and up to the next peak but still no sign of a tower remains. Then I said to Gord "Ok let's try this last peak." Well to our astonishment as we reached the last peak we saw the remains of an old cabin and I immediatley knew it must be the old towerman's bunkhouse. By this time the black flies were out in full force. As we walked just past this cabin, low and behold the tower footings, and even more amazingly, the tower itself. It appeared that instead of dismantling the tower and removing it, the rangers just pulled it over and left it to rot on the peak's rocky ledge. The footings measured 18.5 ft suggesting a tower height of 80ft and the entire length of the steel girders was 74 ft from the base to the bottom of the cupola. In the upper left you can see the remains of the octagonal cupola which I learned was covered with an aluminum siding with some signs of international orange paint if my recollection serves me right.
* Special Note- in the early 1970s this location was used for the Miss Nude Canada Pageant. Now talk about strange locations for such an event- way back in the forest on the site of a future monastery.
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