Sir: Just an update correction for the photo from July 19 edition of The Chatham Voice. Upon seeing the photo I knew exactly where it was.
Part of your description on July 26 of your edition, you claim that this was an old fertilizer plant and a rendering plant. This was only partly true. You were correct that this is in fact a fertilizer plant.
But the smoke stacks were actually part of the old city incinerator plant, where they burned garbage from the city, not a rendering plant.
While being a transport driver, I hauled fertilizer into and out of this facility for years as well from the rendering plant (Darlings) which is across the CN/VIA tracks, south of the tracks, not in this photo.
The fertilizer plant was part of C.I.L. Chemicals, (Canadian Industries Limited) which was accessed from King street east into the facility. The C.I.L plant closed in the early 1960s, and I hauled the remaining dry fertilizer from here to the C.I.L plant
in Ingersoll in 1964.
In the Google aerial view you can still see part of incinerator and its part of the remaining stacks, C.I.L took down their portion, but not the incinerator plant because it was owned by the City of Chatham at the time. The Google photo shows this as mainly covered by brush and trees that are there now.
As for the rendering plant (Darlings) it is actually across the tracks (CN/VIA) on the south side now all mainly bush, which was accessed from Park Street into the facility at the time.
Garry Gee
Chatham
