Aerial Photos: 1939 (1 of 3)

(Click on image to enlarge)

This photo is bisected vertically, just to the left of center, by Grand Boulevard, aka State Road 51. Almost at the center of the photo you can see the triangle formed by the intersection of Grand Boulevard, Ainsworth Road and the Grand Trunk Railroad.

Ainsworth Road here appears in its old configuration: it crosses the railroad tracks and connects with Grand Boulevard south of the tracks. These days it veers north to connect with Grand just north of the tracks, never crossing them at all. When I moved out here in 1990, you could still see a line in the pavement of Ainsworth Road that pointed obliquely toward the tracks, marking the road's old path. I don't know exactly when the change was made, but I believe it was post-1973. When they resurfaced Ainsworth Road prior to excavating Big Maple Lake, they covered up the line.

On the north side of the Ainsworth Triangle, you can just make out what appears to be a building right beside the railroad tracks. I suspect that was the railroad station. Two paths have been worn from Grand Boulevard to that building, as if by people coming from the north and from the south.

As you follow Grand Boulevard south, you can clearly see the dark square of the school building, halfway between Ainsworth Road and 73rd Street.

Looking east on Ainsworth Road, you find no trace of Shiloh Ranch or the sheep farm buildings. Once you pass the tiny house and barn at 6720, there is nothing until the collection of buildings that surrounded the house at the western border of what is now Big Maple Lake park. The house still stands today, and as for the outbuildings, you can find their ruins among the trees that have filled up the fields on both sides of the road.

Continuing eastward along Ainsworth Road, you come to a collection of buildings on the north side of the road, just edging the dense vegetation that marks the Deep River.

When I first started taking my dog for walks in the forest around Big Maple Lake, I noticed great blocks of broken concrete piled along the path at the east end of the park. I thought, who would go to all the trouble of driving up this little path to dump their debris in the park? What's wrong with people? and so on. But a little more exploration showed me that the debris hadn't been imported — it was the remains of some mysterious structure that had been built and then demolished on that site. Deep among the trees, among the thickets of poison ivy and the thorns of multiflora rose, I traced the concrete foundation of a long, narrow building. Elsewhere there were remnants of electrical conduit, fencing, gates, truck bumpers, glazed bricks and, further towards the river, what seemed an archeological treasure trove of garbage that people had dumped down the high, sloping bank of the Deep River. Further investigation of the remains and the garbage dump proved it all disappointingly modern, but I was still curious about what the structures had been and who had built them. I haven't found out yet.

Anyway, there they stand, pristine in an open field, in 1939.