Last week, Barrie residents were surprised by the high-speed police chase that occurred along some of our residential streets and came to a swift end when the vehicle belonging to the suspect was boxed in by law enforcement at Dunlop and High Streets.
Wow, a police pursuit in Barrie? What is happening in our town? Nothing new. There have been plenty of similar wild rides through Barrie over the years.
In the days before Highway 400 was built, summer travelers came largely up Highway 11 and found themselves bottlenecked in the streets of Barrie as they slowly made their way around the bay and out again through the east end of town. Apparently, some passers by preferred to get through town at a more rapid pace.
On a Friday night in late July 1929, Police Chief Stewart had just returned from patrolling the weekend traffic in the Blake and Louisa Streets area when he was amazed to see a car do a complete circle of the Five Points intersection at high rate of speed on two wheels!
Stewart, who was on foot by then, commandeered a citizen’s car and gave chase. Near Crown Hill, the chief caught up to the car which had run into a solid traffic jam and had nowhere to go. John Moses of Niagara Falls, N.Y. was hauled back to Barrie and paid $10 fine and costs in traffic court.
On Sunday, March 24, 1938, the police in Barrie responded to numerous calls of cars disappearing and also to reports of the finding of stolen cars whose owners weren’t immediately known. At noon, a Mrs. Rogers phoned to report that someone had stolen her car from outside Central United Church as she was attending Sunday services. Not long afterwards, a call came in about an abandoned car found outside Morley and Bryson Garage on Bradford Street. That vehicle had been reported stolen in Toronto.
Later in the afternoon, Fred Fisher of the Village of Cundles contacted police to inform them that he too had had his car stolen during Sunday worship, this time at Trinity Anglican Church. Fisher and a friend took a drive around the district in search of the missing auto and miraculously spotted it heading north on Highway 11 near Guthrie. They gave chase and managed to force the car off the road.
The driver was a 25-year-old Orillia man named George Hill. He admitted that he had stolen the car, apologized profusely and told them that his father would gladly pay them $50 to forget about the trouble if they would escort him home. Of course, young Hill bolted as soon as he got home and it was then that Barrie Police were called.
In the evening, Barrie Police learned from officials in Orillia that a car had been taken from just outside St. Paul’s United Church in that town during Saturday evening services. As far as they knew, it had not turned up in Barrie, although they were fairly sure that George Hill was somehow involved with that and all the other disappearing automobiles.
During the Second World War years, there were many soldiers around town. Some of them were young, away from home for the first time and often fueled by a bit of drink purchased in one of Barrie’s many taverns. They frequently got themselves into minor brushes with the law, but one of the more spectacular debacles occurred when a 19-year-old from the Essex Scottish Regiment stole a car.
Although he claimed to have no memory of how he came to be in possession of a vehicle that was not his own, he did recall visiting several downtown beverage rooms in the hours before the trouble started, and he remembered having been accompanied by a girl named Harriet whom he had just met on the street.
Mr. Gordon Cuttler of the Bayview Apartments on Dunlop Street East noticed that his car had been taken in the early evening of June 3, 1940 and alerted the local police who involved the military police in the search. Suddenly, the car was spotted on Bayfield Street. Police Constable Rayner noticed a woman in the passenger seat just as it rounded the corner at Five Points and headed east on Dunlop Street.
A short but wild chase ensued through the streets of Barrie with police cars and motorcycles racing at reported speeds of 75 to 80 miles per hour, sirens wailing. Around 11 p.m., the car failed to navigate a curve on Blake Street and plowed right through the wooden fence at Ovenden College.
The Cuttler car was found wrecked and Pte J. McKeegan was unconscious on the ground after being thrown from the vehicle. Oddly enough, no female passenger was found. Young McKeegan spent a few days under police guard at Royal Victoria Hospital and then had his day in court on June 26. He was found guilty of the theft and would have faced a stiff sentence if he had not been a member of the military during war time. He was given a suspended sentence and ordered to pay damages.
Each week, the Barrie Historical Archive provides BarrieToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past. This unique column features photos and stories from years gone by and is sure to appeal to the historian in each of us.
