Alex Trebek is not the only famous Sudburian to celebrate a birthday on July 22.
One of the city's most recognizable landmarks, the Big Nickel, turns 52 today.
The nine-metre replica of a 1951 Canadian nickel has attracted tourists to the Nickel City since 1964.
When Sudbury's Ted Szilva entered a contest in 1963 to come up with a symbol to commemorate Canada's centennial he came up with the idea of a big nickel.
He bought a piece of land in the city's West End for $1,000 to put his monument. When he went to put in a road to connect the site to Lorne Street, city officials balked, accusing him of building a road without a permit.
But then-Mayor Joe Fabbro later stepped in and ordered officials to “leave him alone,” Szilva told Sudbury.com.
This wasn't the last bureaucratic red tape Szilva had to deal with to get the Big Nickel site going. When the Big Nickel first opened, he had outhouses set up because he wasn't connected to the municipal water system yet, something he said he also had to wrestle permission for from city officials.
He raised the $35,000 it cost to build the structure by selling miniature medallion versions of the monument. Today, it would cost more than $250,000 to build the structure, he told Sudbury.com in 2014.
A one-of-a-kind personality till the last, Szilva passed away on March 9, 2016, at the age of 81.
But his legacy continues through the Big Nickel and the charitable work he did throughout the city for many years.
