Phil Egan
Its grandeur was captured forever in a sketch by Canadian artist J.C. McArthur.
It depicts a group of 266 Icelandic immigrants leaving Point Edward’s impressive Grand Trunk Railway station in 1875 as they prepared to board the steamer, Ontario.
Driven from their homes in Iceland by an erupting volcano, they had been lured to the shores of Lake Winnipeg by Canadian agents – a journey that brought them to the railway terminus in the flourishing company town of Point Edward.
Built in 1859 as the Grand Trunk connected Point Edward to the rest of the fast-growing network in Ontario, the station-hotel was a three-storey, white brick building, 200 feet long and 40 feet high.
It was equipped with first-class and second-class waiting rooms, an excellent restaurant and overnight accommodations. The stationmaster, John McAvoy, had apartments for his family.
The property was beautifully landscaped, with gardens, flowerbeds and a fountain. It was located on the waterfront on land that today is partly beneath the Blue Water Bridge. A west-facing balcony overlooked the St. Clair River and Lake Huron.
In the years immediately following Confederation, a red brick baggage depot and telegraph office was constructed adjoining the station to the south. Livestock sheds to the east sheltered animals in transit.
On the river side, the GTR built a shed for overseas immigrants and maintained a location on the river where travellers could bathe and wash their clothes as they waited to be ferried across the river to Fort Gratiot to continue their travels.
Over the years, the station hosted a number of notable visitors. When the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, visited Sarnia in 1860 it was a time of momentous celebration. The Prince was naturally feted at one of the area’s finest restaurants — the one at the station — after which a massive ball was held in his honour.
Lord Monck, the governor-general of Canada, was the next celebrity to visit the station. He was passing through Point Edward on a trip to Detroit in August of 1865. Later that year, Ulysses S. Grant and his family were also overnight guests. Touring the U.S. and Canada following the triumph of the Union armies under his command in the American Civil War, Grant was en route from Buffalo to Detroit when he stopped and visited the area.
A passing train started a fire in 1877 that destroyed the great station. It was replaced with a smaller building, and when the St. Clair Tunnel opened in 1891 rail traffic shifted south to Sarnia.
With it went about two-third’s of Point Edward’s population.