Gasometer

View over Carroll’s Point and across the bay showing belching smokestacks 1946. — This 1946 photo from the Burlington Heights capturing the view over Carroll’s Point and across the bay shows the Gasometer standing out on the industrial horizon amid the many smokestacks belching out clouds of smoke. Just to its right Brightside lay, covered in thick smoke. (Courtesy of LAH, HPL)

Residents repairing a fence on Plymouth Street, Gasometer and coke piles in background. — Brightsiders repairing a fence on Plymouth Street with the Gasometer and piles of coke standing in the background. (Source: <em>Brightside Reunion</em>, pg. 22).

John Fioravanti recalls tobogganing down the hills made of coke on the west side of Depew Street in the days of his youth. (Written by and Courtesy of John Fioravanti)

Four young boys and a dog with Gasometer looming in background. — A landmark in Brightside, the Gasometer looms in the background of many neighbourhood photos. (Courtesy of Derek Harmon and <em>Brightside</em>

Intersections of Plymouth and Burlington (top) and Gage and Burlington (bottom). — This photo shows the intersections of Plymouth and Burlington (top) and Gage and Burlington (bottom). The Gasometer, and the silos of Hamilton Coke Bi-Products Co. are in the background (top). Markowski’s Variety store is at the corner. (Source: Stelco Flashes, 3 March 1957; Courtesy of <em>Brightside Memories</em> FaceBook Page)

The Hamilton By-Products Coke Company of Canada Ltd.’s Gasometer loomed at the eastern edge of Brightside. Its tall cylindrical scaffold contained a huge inflatable bladder that rose when filled with gas and sank as that gas was used to light and heat the homes, businesses, and streets of Hamilton. Nearby, just across Depew Street, lay tall piles of coke that kids would use for winter tobogganing.

Listen: Brightside's Enlightening Gasometer. Click the play circle below.

Speaker 1:

So, the coal came from West Virginia, or Ohio, or wherever - West Virginia largely.

And some from Canada.

They brought the coal into this company - the coke ovens company - and the coke ovens company took the coal and made coke out of it.

Hence, they were called the Coke Company.

The coke went to Stelco.

To be in the blast furnace.

Coke + limestone + iron ore.

You cook it in the blast furnace – out comes the molten iron.

But what they burned off from the coal…

Speaker 2:

Yes sir.

Speaker 1:

… was gas.

The gas went in the tank.

Speaker 3:

Mm.

Speaker 1:

When the gas was in the tank the bag rose.

When they let the gas out to light the streets on the city, the gas thing went down….

[chatter]

Speaker 4:

I used to watch that all the time - in the morning it goes up and by nighttime down.

Speaker 1:

…and that’s how all the streets of Hamilton.

The streetlights were lit [slap] by the people of Brightside!

Gasometer

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