20. The McDermott Block (1949 Fire)

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The McDermott Block – 1 Albert Street S

Nowadays, the southeast corner of Albert and River streets is the Foxfires Restaurant.

Years ago, in 1949, there was a whole block of buildings here. Built around 1870, these buildings were originally known as the Porritt Block and pictures of them are shown in the Ontario County Atlas of 1877. In 1872, William Gordon had a dry goods store in unit number two of the Porritt Block and sold ready-made clothing and groceries. Dr. McDermott also had a drugstore here. At that time in 1904, the complex had a bank, post office, a furniture store and two other stores on the ground level. Later in 1910, the post office, drugstore and other stores remained, but a new grocery store and office had been added. In 1910, Thomas Welsh was the postmaster here and in 1913, Harry Baldwin had a drugstore with a telegraph office next door.

By the time of the Great Fire in 1949, the area was known as the McDermott Block. In 1949 Jack Allin was the postmaster, and Harry Brandon delivered the mail. George Clay had a restaurant and ice cream parlor in the McDermott block. Clayton Henderson ran a barber shop and billiard hall. Neil D. McFadden also had a store and butcher shop at the time.

All of these businesses were destroyed when a fire started in George Clay’s restaurant at about nine o’clock in the morning and quickly spread throughout the building. Mr. Clay had gone to Doyle’s General store to buy some butter from the clerk Mabel Wright when the fire began. Within three hours the entire complex was gone including five stores and businesses as well as several private residences. Families were left homeless with little more than the clothes on their back. Other than the deadly 1919 influenza virus, this was the most significant tragedy in Sunderland of the 20th century. Fire crews from nearby towns arrived to help and cut holes through the ice in the nearby Beaver River to get to a source of water. In this way they kept the flames from spreading to nearby buildings. Volunteers climbed up on the slippery rooftops in an attempt to put out any embers from the original fire, often with only buckets of water or clumps of snow. Human chains were formed to remove eggs and chickens from the grading station and supplies from Doyle’s egg grading station and supplies. The two-hundred-thousand-dollar loss of materials and structures was so severe that the buildings were never replaced. A Texaco gas station was placed at the corner from 1950 to 1984 and until 1986 Bill McDougall had a car wash and laundromat here. In July 1986, Lindsay Aluminum Ltd. Put in a branch office owned by Louis Lazinek. Since then, there have been several restaurants at this location such as the Plow and Harrow, Flink’s, the ME and R. Coyote and most recently REMAX Realty.

Updates

  • Special Thanks to Ron Gerrow for donating 4 press photo originals and 5 original 1949 newspapers
  • July 11, 2026 Added 4 HQ scans of photos from original prints
    • Added Scan of Globe & Mail article on page 17.
  • July 12, 2026 Fixed typos and added The Evening Telegram Thursday Jan 6 1949 on pages 1,2
  • July 22, 2026 Added Toronto Daily Star on pages 1, 2 and 3
  • July 24, 2026 Add The Evening Telegram Friday Jan 7 1949 Page 3

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