By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He may have been the most intriguing character who ever wielded a gavel at Sarnia City Hall. Thomas Dohefty, who was elected our 36th Mayor in 1916, was nothing short of a genius when it came to the creation of mechanical devices. Indeed, [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He was the first Sarnia Mayor to face an international crisis. William Robert Paul became our 35th Chief Magistrate in 1915, just as the First World War was beginning to heat up. Warfare isn’t normally considered a municipal matter but with more than [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer Mayor Joe Dagan was a man who thought big. When he was elected our 34th Chief Magistrate in 1914 Sarnia had been a 'Town' for nearly six decades. In fact, its status hadn't changed since 1857, the year the Municipality finally shed 'Village' [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He was the 'father of secret meetings' at Sarnia Council. Joseph Alexander Bell was the first Mayor in the Municipality's history to conduct a 'closed door' session of Council. It happened on April 21, 1913, and it created an uproar. Mayor Bell asked [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer No Mayor in Sarnia's history faced a crisis comparable to the one that confronted John McGibbon in 1912. McGibbon, who was born near Milton in 1859, became Chief Magistrate at a time when the Municipality was reeling from outbreaks of diphtheria and scarlet [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer Tradesmen who find work repairing the many ships that berth in Sarnia each winter can thank Mayor Bill Henderson for their jobs. That's because the Community’s 31st Chief Magistrate talked the Federal Government into creating a winter harbor here in 1911. Born in [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer When Albert Johnston was elected Sarnia's 30th Mayor, the Community was still attempting to adjust to the 20th century. It was 1910, a time when The Observer could report in the same issue that an automobile manufacturing company was considering coming to Town [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer In 1996, when Sarnia Councillors debated whether to regulate sexually explicit movies, some of them may have thought they were breaking new ground. But in reality they were only carrying on a tradition started 87 years earlier by Mayor David Milne. In fact, [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer George Proctor would likely have gone down in history as a great Sarnian even if he'd never been elected Mayor. That's because in addition to being the Community’s 28th Chief Magistrate, he was a successful builder, the first President of the Sarnia Humane [...]
By Dan McCaffery for the Sarnia Observer He lit up our lives. Mayor David Barr, Sarnia's 27th Mayor, headed the Council that installed 100 electric street lamps in the Municipality. Barr, a prominent local watchmaker and jeweler, was elected Mayor in 1905 after serving several years as an Alderman. He [...]
