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CONTENTS

Introduction 3

1 Building Oshawa’s ‘Summer Wonderland’ 6

2 Pleasure Valley Speedway 9

3 The Oshawa Julip 12

4 The Fire 24Acknowledgements 27

About the author 28

Copyright 29

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IntroductionIn September 2012 I gave our readers a challenge: work with me to document a piece of Oshawa’s history.

For years the great pumpkin/golf ball had stood as a landmark in north Oshawa signalling to motorists they had arrived in the Motor City on their return from places north. It’s most recent iteration was as the home of Oshawa Creek Family Golf centre at 1569 Simcoe St. N.

Early one September morning the giant orb went up in flames. The property had long sat vacant, the hydro and gas shut off in anticipation of demolition. One could be forgiven for speculating the great pumpkin hadn’t burst into flames on its own, but likely had a little help from human interlopers.

It was a sad ending for a property that holds fond childhood memories for many of us in Durham Region.

How ironic that just a week prior to the fire, I received an e-mail from Darryl Tay-lor of Oshawa seeking my help in finding historic photos of a speedway that once operated on the site.

I was surprised to hear that Pleasure Valley Speedway operated there in 1952-53, definitely before my time (insert smiley face here!).

Glenford Taylor, Darryl’s grandfather, had once raced at the speedway in a car sponsored by Salter’s Body Shop.

Darryl’s quest to add some photo history of the era to his family tree project launched me on a weeks-long adventure as I sifted through e-mails, enjoyed long chats with James family members and others who remembered bits and pieces of the site’s colourful history.

My thanks to the many members of the James family who shared their time, mem-ories and photos with me including: Bruce, Tracy, Beau and Sally.

And to the people who responded to my invitation to help me tell the story of Pleasure Valley Ranch. People like neighbour Thelma Langlais who had me laugh-ing on the phone as she shared her memories of George James.

I don’t think I’ve had as much fun ever researching as story as I did interviewing

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Don and Anne Wilson at their kitchen table in Bowmanville, a stone’s throw from the Bowmanville zoo, the peacocks crowing in the distance. In one of those now-I’ve-seen-everything moments, I paused to watch the family cat lop by.

“Is that a three-legged cat?” I asked. Yup!

Ninety-five-year-old Gord Platt telephoned to share his memories of the boxing matches held at Pleasure Valley during the war years. Hmm I thought, I wonder if he’d be interested in meeting my 101-year-old grandmother but this is not a dating opportunity I laughed to myself.

I’ll always be happy I picked up the phone the day Darryl Taylor called.

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George R. James has been described as a maverick, an entrepreneur, larger-than-life. In 1939 he purchased a large parcel of land on Simcoe Street North in Oshawa where for the next few

decades the James family would build an ever-evolving tourist attraction - Pleasure Valley. Supplied photo

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1 Building Oshawa’s ‘Summer Wonderland’OSHAWA -- A creative guy. The County constable and unofficial ‘mayor’ of north Oshawa. A maverick and an entrepreneur.

George James was a larger-than-life -- some might call him infamous -- character. Wildly entrepreneurial, he was the wizard behind Oshawa’s Pleasure Valley Ranch, where monkeys and bears entertained wartime crowds, Saturday night dances were worth hiking miles to attend and, legend has it, where wartime pilots in training were known to buzz the park in low-flying Harvards after an evening of frivolity.

Oshawa realtor Bruce James, 79, smiles wryly as he reflects upon the life of his fath-er: “He just did his thing, and there are a lot of things he did.”

George was born April 23, 1911. As a young man he was a metal finisher at General Motors where he was paid $1.37 per hour.

Bruce was a child when his dad purchased 18 acres on Simcoe Street North in a val-ley adjacent to the site Camp Samac now sits on. It’s on that land that George and Mary James built their home in 1939.

Quitting his day job, George put his imagination to work creating Pleasure Valley Ranch. Touted as ‘Oshawa’s Summer Wonderland,’ the park boasted a sweeping list of attractions including a man-made lake, a dance hall, two pools, a clubhouse, out-door skating, wiener roasts, a small train, horses and a variety of other animals.

Bruce remembers the ranch during the war years of 1940 and 1941.

“The world was totally different during the war. Nobody had money. No gas, no car, no money.”

At that time the City of Oshawa ended at Rossland Road. There were no buses to the ranch so visitors had to have a car or get there on foot.

Despite the walking distance, the ranch was a popular destination as one of the only sources of entertainment in the area. On dance nights people would make the trek by foot north from Rossland Road to the dance hall where big band music filled the air, says Bruce.

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Bruce recently reminisced about his days as a ticket taker at his dad’s park, a time of adventure for the 10-year-old boy.

George James is pictured with two of his children, Bruce and Sally. Bears were often part of the show at Pleasure Valley. Photo supplied by Bruce James

It was 1943 and the notorious Beanery Gang was said to be coming to the park to cause a little trouble.

Bruce describes how his dad, the County constable at the time, enlisted a group of men to help keep the peace. With baseball bats barely concealed behind their backs, they awaited the arrival of the Beanery Gang. When the boys arrived at the gate, so the story goes, they saw the bats and promptly paid up.

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Gord Platt, 95, came to Oshawa in the 1940s. He remembers vividly his brother-in-law, Tom Bowler, boxing at Pleasure Valley.

Mr. Platt started a welding shop where he got to know George James as a customer. At over six feet tall, George was a doer and “quite an energetic man”, says Mr. Platt.

An advertising brochure for Pleasure Valley Ranch touts the property as

‘Oshawa’s Summer Wonderland’.

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2 Pleasure Valley SpeedwayEventually George embarked on a new endeavour, the Pleasure Valley Speedway, which operated in 1952 and 1953.

A highlight of the speedway was an adjacent body of water that formed a unique hazard. When cars went off the track at that corner they would land upside down in about four feet of water. Bruce’s job, at the age of 19, was to run a boat over and help the drivers out.

From his kitchen table in Bowmanville, 81-year-old Don Wilson chuckles as he de-scribes how he landed upside down in the lake on his very first race.

“If you went off the corner at No. 2 you were in the lake,” he confirms. “They would just pull the vehicle out, make sure there was no water in the oil, and carry on.”

Driving a ‘37 Ford coupe, 21-year-old Don won a 60-lap race at Pleasure Valley Speedway in 1952. He took home a cheque for $75, which, he points out, was a lot of money in those days.

A newspaper advertisement for Pleasure Valley Speedway. Supplied by Darryl Taylor

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The Daily Times-Gazette, Sept. 2, 1952

“Twenty-five thousand watts of light now spray on the Pleasure Valley Oval which borders the picturesque but dangerously close artificial lake. The exactly quarter-mile track forms the bottom of a natural bowl. The turn beneath the spectators’ benches on the north bank is very tight and cars taking the round too widely plunge over the em-bankement into the lake. This happened twice last night.

All seats in the natural ampitheatre were taken for the championship run, the second race since the floodlights were installed. Spectators sat on the rim and banks of the grassy bowl and leaned against the coniferous trees, spruce, pine and cedar.

Above the dust they looked down on a roaring hell. No city lights or highway lights are visible in the dark scenic valley and when the cars began furiously, angrily churning around the banked turns beneath them the track became a fantastic, flaming, noisy cloud of dust with fenderless, hoodless, red hot engined cars emerging to visibility.

But George’s speedway was up against 5-Point Speedway, the other speedway in the city, and soon drivers from as far away as Toronto were flocking to its paved track near Taunton and Ritson roads. Pleasure Valley Speedway closed after just two sea-sons, the property sold to Camp Samac.

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Don Wilson in his ‘37 Ford coupe. Photo supplied by Don Wilson

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3 The Oshawa JulipIn the early 1960s George embarked on yet another enterprise on the site -- the Oshawa Julip. A fast-food joint fashioned after a chain of the same name out of Montreal, its trademark giant round building, painted bright orange, stood as an Oshawa landmark for more 60 years before being turned to ash in a fire earlier this year.

There were no blueprints for a round building and George was not an engineer. But with a Grade 8 education and working from a homemade diagram he “just built it,” says Bruce.

George James opened the Orange Julip in the early 1960s. The signature round building

became a landmark on Oshawa’s Simcoe Street. Photo supplied by Peter Young (1972).

Erecting a steel pole at the centre, George used a template to cut wooden supports from recycled lumber. From the pole, rods of steel projected out like the spokes of a wheel and the supports, laminated together end to end, ran in a circle around the orb. The giant orange globe was topped off with a big flag.

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By the time the Orange Julip was in business Oshawa had a bus line running north and south on Simcoe Street; the Orange Julip was the end of the line.

George was no fool. He built a shelter on the site so riders could wait for the bus. No doubt having hungry commuters board right in front of his restaurant proved good for business.

Thelma Langlais, who lived across the street from Pleasure Valley for nearly 50 years, laughs aloud when she remembers all the business ventures George under-took.

“He’d make a thousand and spend five,” she says fondly.

In time the ranch closed and by 1976 the Orange Julip was also boarded up and turned over to George’s children who, having inherited their father’s entrepreneur-ial spirit, re-invented the Julip as a giant white golf ball. They opened the Caddy Shack mini-putt in the early 1980s and added the Laff Track where visitors could rent an ATV-style vehicle with a roll cage and race around a dirt track. Eventually there were go-karts, Pappy’s restaurant, a driving range, bumper boats and paddle boats. After a few years the family sold off Caddy Shack and the surrounding prop-erty.

Grandson Beau James recalls with fondness walking upstairs to the restaurant and hearing the buzz of people enjoying their dinner.

“There are many times that I wish I could go back to those days of innocence at the park when people were abuzz, creating memories through various activities that my family had helped create,” he says.

The property changed hands a couple of times and fell into a state of disrepair be-fore landing in the hands of another big thinker who, seeing an opportunity created by the establishment of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology up the road, hopes to build a student residence.

George James would approve of the entrepreneurial spirit.

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An advertisement for the Laff Track, an ATV-style racing adventure at what was by then called the Caddyshack.

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The Caddyshack eventually closed and fell into disrepair as the property changed hands over the years. Zach Zimmerman, an amateur photographer, visited the property in April 2012 where

he captured some of the last images of the buildings before they burned a few months later.

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Photo by Zack Zimmerman

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Photo by Zack Zimmerman

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Photo by Zack Zimmerman

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Photo by Zack Zimmerman

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Photo by Zack Zimmerman

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Photo by Zack Zimmerman

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Photo by Zack Zimmerman

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Photo by Zack Zimmerman

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4 Fire marks the end of the road for a landmark

Fire crews were called to Oshawa Creek Family Golf to fight a blaze at approximately 3:30 a.m. Sept. 8, 2012 . Photo by Jason Liebregts

Oshawa This Week Sept. 10, 2012

OSHAWA -- A building that had been slated for demolition was destroyed earlier than expected after a massive fire broke out Saturday morning.

Fire crews were called to Oshawa Creek Family Golf at 1569 Simcoe St. N. just after 3:30 a.m. on Sept. 8 to find the former driving range and miniature golf site engulfed in flames.

“There used to be a (large) golf ball (sculpture) here on the west side and you can see the back of the house there where the flames were coming out,” said Oshawa fire pre-

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vention inspector Paul Hunt, who remained on scene around noon.

“It had burnt up through the two floors by the time we got here.”

City of Oshawa workers were called in to demolish the structure, allowing firefighters to access the hot spots underneath.

“We have to pull it out to get at it because otherwise, that will smolder and smolder for days,” said Oshawa fire platoon chief Jim Phillips.

“We’ve had to do this many times before ... it’s our only way to get this thing out.”

Police blocked off northbound traffic on Simcoe Street at Glovers Road.

No injuries were reported. All power and gas had been shut off at the abandoned site, which had been slated for demolition for about a year.

The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.

“We won’t be able to determine the point of origin until we get in there and they’ll have to pull it all down, which will make it even tougher to find a cause,” said Mr. Hunt.

Damage is estimated to be between $200,000 and $300,000.

Bruce was only four when his father built Pleasure Valley Ranch. Seventy-five years later he stood on the roadside taking in the smouldering ruins of the Orange Julip. Sadly, on Sept. 8, 2012, the giant round building, vacant and vandalized for a num-ber of years, burned to the ground leaving the family with a sentimental feeling of loss.

-30-

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Acknowledgements

On Sept. 8, 2012 a giant white golf ball-shaped building on Simcoe Street North in Oshawa burned to the ground. For as long as I can remember, it was a landmark in the city, one I often drove past with my family as we returned from Balsam Lake Provincial Park on one of our many camping trips. It was there when I was a Girl Guide at Camp Samac, and later I would see it every day on my way to and from Durham College as a journalism student.

In the wake of the fire I put out a call to our readers inviting them to help me pen the history of the landmark.

I would like to thank all of those who shared their photos, memorabilia and mem-ories with me to help bring this story to life, including: Tracy James-Hockin, Bruce James, Peter Young, Brian Todgham, Darryl Taylor, Beau James, Zach Zimmerman, Anne and Don Wilson, Sally Richardson, Gord Platt and Thelma Langlais.

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About the author

Joanne Burghardt is Editor-in-Chief of the Durham Region division of Metroland Media Group Ltd. With more than 30 years experience in community journalism Joanne has been the recipient of numerous awards for editorial excellence including being named Editor of the Year for non-daily newspapers by the Suburban Newspapers of America. In 2010 Joanne accepted the Canadian Journalism Foundation Award for Editorial Excellence on behalf of her news team. An active com-munity volunteer, she is a recipient of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association’s Mary Knowles Award for Community Service.

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Copyright Notice

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Durham Region division.

All rights reserved

865 Farewell St.,

Oshawa, ON

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Editor-in-Chief: Joanne Burghardt

Managing Editor: Mike Johnston

Maverick

George R. James: the man behind Oshawa’s Pleasure Valley

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