Between Darkness & Light | Metal Tech – Woodstock Foundry

I love a good industrial location, but the former Metal Tech Foundry in Woodstock along the Canadian Pacific tracks was filthy. I always came out wishing I had brought coveralls. But that would have drawn too much attention to the surprisingly residential neighborhood and the semi-active train station near by. This massive location was mostly empty but offered something big and exciting in the city that didn’t involve a former police station or piles of tyres.

Formed as the Eureka Planter Company in 1905, the founders took advantage of the offer of a free plot of land from the Canadian Pacific Railway near their station in Woodstock; the City also offered up a 12,000 dollar loan to assist in setting up the company. Eureka would begin to produce livestock racks for wagons and, more importantly, seed planters for the sizeable agricultural economy in the region. The location near the railway line at the intersection of Winnette & Drew allowed the company to quickly bring in raw materials and ship out finished products to market. During World War 1, Eureka shifted to producing simple wooden grenade boxes. Eureka continued to produce regular products, even completing a second building in 1917 to focus on building lawnmowers. Eureka-made push mowers quickly became well-known for their high-quality construction and ease of use. A third building, a dedicated grey iron foundry, was completed in 1927 further up the railway tracks on Tecumseh. The dedicated foundry allowed Eureka to produce the raw materials needed for the construction of lawnmowers and other agricultural tools. It also meant that during World War Two, Eureka produced hand grenades, anti-submarine shells, and flywheels used in Ford army trucks. The war effort transformed Eureka into a local powerhouse, and in 1945, the company was renamed Eureka Foundry & Manufacturing Company and began to focus solely on the production of lawnmowers. The move to lawnmowers proved beneficial as the explosion in urban growth in the post-war economy saw many more people have a house with both a front and backyard. Eureka produced the first powered mower in 1947, and a year later, an improved model called the Canadian Clipper.

Although the lawn mower boom proved short-lived, in 1953, the focus moved more towards grey iron casting. Operations at the original two buildings began to wind down as a significant expansion to the foundry allowed everything to be focused on the single location. Production shifted to the now-growing automotive market, which began to attract outside attention. In 1959, Gurnite Foundries from Rockford, Illinois, purchased Eureka. Gurnite barely took over when Kelsey-Hayes bought out Gurnite and formed a Canadian branch. Eureka would continue to operate as a grey iron foundry under the Eureka name. Kelsey-Hayes would open a second location in Woodstock in 1969, with both locations focusing on the automotive sector and other industrial applications. Environmental concerns would force Eureka to install anti-pollution equipment in 1971 and begin cleaning up the foundry site. During this cleanup in 1973, the foundry suffered the only major accident in the history of the plant, the death of Stanley Lorenc. While operations continued, the latter half of the 1970s and into the 1980s brought significant disruption; with instability in the manufacturing sector and the automotive industry, the foundry was racked with labour unrest and layoffs. However, the need for grey iron continued, and Eureka weathered the storm into the 1990s. In 2001, the Eureka Foundry was purchased by Metal Technologies, becoming Metal Tech Woodstock Grey Iron Foundry. Although operations were significantly reduced with a workforce of only 150 by the time the plant closed in 2005. The old foundry sat empty for almost a decade, becoming one of several old industrial buildings that needed attention. A fire took out a large section of the plant at the end of 2011, and a demolition order was granted and started in 2012. By the end of 2013, the entire site was gone and was being redeveloped into another industrial location. In an odd twist, the original building at Winnette & Drew still stands and has been renovated as a commercial building.

It took me a bit of time to figure out how many times I visited the foundry; I clearly remembered two trips, the first after seeing a lovely concert in London by a friend and then meeting up with a local explorer in Woodstock to check out a couple of locations, Metal Tech and an abandoned Roman Catholic Parish. The second was a local exploration meeting in Woodstock, which blended into that third trip with friends. It resulted in a multi-city tour of the area, starting in London and ending in Woodstock. We had a lot of things going for us with Metal Tech; first of all, it was an isolated location with low security, no active security, but only light passive security measures. But it was filthy, not as bad as the Crowe Foundry, but I always left with a layer of grime. Like other locations, I have no clear memories of anything interesting. Other than that, the place was interesting to visit. I was always drawn more to huge industrial locations. Metal Tech was massive, and everything was built on each other. I’ve only seen that once more at a paper mill in Ohio. However, the trips ended up being uneventful, which makes for a good exploration but bad for storytelling. That said, the weirdest find was the boxes of tampons; wondering why the office had tampons, but there they were.

The one thing that stands out about my photography at Metal Tech is my use of black & white; I think it solidified my enjoyment of the medium long before I started to develop my film at home. I also learned to use something other than a wide-angle lens in abandoned buildings, going with the 35mm f/2 and the powerful Nikon F4. The real power of the images is in the use of Kodak Tri-X. Sadly, that film is a bit pricey for regular use; you have to remember these were all shot during that brief moment when film prices were still low because the film was on its way out. Also, I think what helps is how well I composed these shots, getting comfortable with flat compositions for most of my images. And also working with leading lines. But it was not only my film work, but the shot of the blast furnace on digital converted to black & white that stands out. I don’t recall exactly what I did, but I had to adjust my exposure to catch the sunbeams, all done by eye and trial and error. Honestly, despite having so few images (less than sixty total), I walked away from my three trips to Metal Tech with an excellent view of the foundry.

Metal Tech does not stand out as one of my favourite locations despite ticking all the boxes of what I looked for in an industrial location. Specifically the big empty, but also plenty left to see in the way of industrial equipment. I find it weird that I took some fantastic black & white images that began to sell me on using more black & white in abandoned locations than colour film. However, I was still exploring film as a medium in a larger way than I had always used film. While I’m sad that the location was torn down, I am impressed that I managed to get here three times in a short period of time considering I had to make an effort to drive out to Woodstock. You can see all my images over on Flickr!