Port Arthur Stadium: A Century of Lakehead Baseball
Before it was demolished, the old ballpark on Cumberland Street hosted generations of summer evenings.
For much of the twentieth century, summer in Port Arthur meant baseball at the stadium on Cumberland Street. Generations of families filled its wooden grandstand for senior league games, exhibition visits, and the occasional barnstorming star.
Opened in the 1950s on the site of earlier diamonds, the stadium was for decades the beating heart of the city's amateur sport. Its eventual demolition closed a chapter that older residents still recall in vivid detail - the smell of cut grass, the crack of the bat, the long northern twilight that let games run late.
Why it still matters
Civic memory lives in places like this. Understanding what the ballpark meant helps explain the affection - and occasional grief - that surrounds Thunder Bay's older landmarks today.
