Ontario's Provincial Plaques

Here's where you can learn a little Ontario history.

The Alligator Tug

I have visited the location shown below and have discovered the plaque base and post but the plaque itself is missing. I have notified the Ontario Heritage Trust. According to a message received on May 2, 2008, from one of the contributors to this site, George Nassas, "a new plaque has been sent out by the Heritage people but hasn't been mounted. When it is it'll probably be relocated to a park by Argyle St. near a working tug that the city has on display."

Plaque Location

The County of Norfolk
In Simcoe, at the south-west corner of Argyle St and Basil Ave across the parking lot between the Tug stairs and the brick building.

Plaque Text

By the late 19th century, lumbering in Ontario had retreated from easily accessible waterways and the movement of logs became difficult and expensive. An imaginative solution to this problem, the amphibious steam warping (or winching) tug, was developed in 1888-9 by an inventive local entrepreneur John Ceburn West. His remarkable vessel, commonly called the "Alligator" was driven by paddle wheels and housed a powerful winch that enabled the scow to tow large log booms cheaply and efficiently to pull itself over land from lake to lake. West's iron foundry, West and Peachey of Simcoe quickly became the major producer of "Alligators", supplying the North American lumbering industry with some 200 tugs by 1932. Although considerably modified, the "Alligator" is still in use today.

Here's More
Waterways

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