Waaa Park from 1896 - 1910
This was Waaa Park from 1896 two 1910 the track was between the Thames River and Thomas Bus , the grounds were then sold to Wayne Oil Tank company in 1913, which later became the Eureka foundry and Kelsey Hayes.
The original racetrack in Woodstock was by the Thames River behind where Thomas Bus on Tecumseh Street now sits.
When I was a boy in the 1940s and 1950s, we used to swim in the Thames at a place called the ‘Target’. Someone had placed a makeshift wooden dam there and the water was waist high. There was a big tree there and a rope to swing on to fall into the water from. One day we went to the swimming hole and the tree had tipped over into the water. That was the end of our swimming hole and we all started going to the ‘Lions Pool’. No more blood suckers and ‘pink eye’.
The back (-stretch of the old racetrack) was just upstream from the ‘Target’; and as kids we would run around it to dry off. It was quite overgrown with thistles and long grass but its shape could still be seen as it was pasture land for Mr. Burgess’s cows. We had to be careful not only of the thistles but the cow platters as we ran.
World famous distance runner Tom Longboat, from Ohsweken, won the Boston Marathon in 1907, then won the Oxford Marathon in 1910 and in 1912. This local race went between the Woodstock racetrack and Beachville and back, and was held annually during two days of sport events marking Queen Victoria’s Birthday.
This was Waaa Park from 1896 two 1910 the track was between the Thames River and Thomas Bus , the grounds were then sold to Wayne Oil Tank company in 1913, which later became the Eureka foundry and Kelsey Hayes.
Sources:
- Doug M. Symons, 'The Village That Straddled A Swamp,' p. 48 (Oxford Historical Society)
- Susan V. Start, 'Fair Play - Woodstock’s Agricultural Society 1836-1986,' (Woodstock Public Library
Paul Roberts.
The original racetrack in Woodstock was by the Thames River behind where Thomas Bus on Tecumseh Street now sits.
When I was a boy in the 1940s and 1950s, we used to swim in the Thames at a place called the ‘Target’. Someone had placed a makeshift wooden dam there and the water was waist high. There was a big tree there and a rope to swing on to fall into the water from. One day we went to the swimming hole and the tree had tipped over into the water. That was the end of our swimming hole and we all started going to the ‘Lions Pool’. No more blood suckers and ‘pink eye’.
The back (-stretch of the old racetrack) was just upstream from the ‘Target’; and as kids we would run around it to dry off. It was quite overgrown with thistles and long grass but its shape could still be seen as it was pasture land for Mr. Burgess’s cows. We had to be careful not only of the thistles but the cow platters as we ran.
World famous distance runner Tom Longboat, from Ohsweken, won the Boston Marathon in 1907, then won the Oxford Marathon in 1910 and in 1912. This local race went between the Woodstock racetrack and Beachville and back, and was held annually during two days of sport events marking Queen Victoria’s Birthday.
This was Waaa Park from 1896 two 1910 the track was between the Thames River and Thomas Bus , the grounds were then sold to Wayne Oil Tank company in 1913, which later became the Eureka foundry and Kelsey Hayes.
Sources:
- Doug M. Symons, 'The Village That Straddled A Swamp,' p. 48 (Oxford Historical Society)
- Susan V. Start, 'Fair Play - Woodstock’s Agricultural Society 1836-1986,' (Woodstock Public Library
Paul Roberts.
