b'HISTORIC CONSTRUCTION Under the headline of New Steam Mills and Distillery, TorontosGaol. The limestone was laid as metre-thick walls with inner and GlobenewspaperreportedonJuly11,1859thatThestoneisouter block faces and rubble fill. from the Kingston quarries, and in its carriage four schooners are constantly employed. The first story is to be fire-proof throughoutIt came as ballast in lake ships, says Andrew Pruss, principala fact that would become significant not long afterwards. with ERA Architects, which designed and advised on the adaptive reuse of the then-vacant distillery for new retail and office space. Thesamesourceestimatedthebuildingcostat$25,000andThe Stone Distillery used to front the lakefront, and Gooderham reported that 400 to 600 labourers and mechanics were employedand Worts used to have substantial wharfs, so it would have been in the project. Equipped with elevators to hoist the grain from railfairly easy to bring the stone in. cars that ran essentially up to the front door, it would be capableKingstonhadalreadybecomeestablishedastheLimestone of milling 150 barrels of flour and mashing 1,500 bushels of grainCity by this time. Like the Niagara region, it had developed a for distilling every day.skilled workforce in the early 1800s when the Welland and Rideau Theambitiousconstructionprojectwouldtaketwoyears,Canals were built. Until the introduction of Portland cement in reaching completion in January 1861, by which time costs had risen1889, local limestone was a favoured building material in towns to about $200,000. Early the following year, The Globes Annualalong the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes.Review of the Trade for Toronto declared the Stone Distillery toStretching throughout Eastern Ontario are layers of limestone be the most important contribution to the manufacturing intereststhat are anywhere from 480 to 440 million years old, says Peter ofToronto.Itdescribedtheconstructiontechniques,whichByer, aggregate resources information officer, soils and aggregates included doubling all the wooden support beams so that damagedsection, Engineering Materials Office at the Ontario Ministry of timbers could be removed and replaced. Instead of being insertedTransportation. In Kingston, its Ordovician Period limestones, into the walls, they rested on stone corbels so as to promote airwhich were basically laid down as fine sediments in shallow tropical circulation and prevent rot. oceans. Limestone is a relatively soft rock, so its easy to quarry if BUILT TO LAST your tools are hand picks and saws.The stonework was carried out by Messrs. Godson and Kesteven.By the 1860s, they would have been able to drill and blast, Godson was a shadowy figure, but his partner was likely a generalexplainsByer,althoughaddingthatwhenyouretryingto buildernamedJohnKestevenwhomanagedprojectsaroundmaintainlargeblocks,yourbestbetistocarve.Numerous southern Ontario, including Lindsays County Court House andabandoned quarries around Kingston tell the story of the industry. WINTER 2021AVENUES 17'