If a person turns off Elm Street onto Frood Road in downtown Sudbury, they will very quickly come across our city’s nod to the Art Deco form.
A grey building that appears triangular at first (not unlike the downtown’s other flatiron buildings) but behind that street-level facade lies an expansive facility that served the community’s needs for nearly 50 years.
Let us now step through its front doors and back in time to immerse ourselves in a little bit of the history as well as some of the special events that were held within the hallowed walls of the Inco Employees Club.
In the summer of 1937, a central feature of the International Nickel Company's expansive program to improve the entertainment and well-being of its employees was first announced by Vice-President and General Manager Donald MacAskill.
Construction was to be commenced immediately on a recreation and amusement building to be known as the Inco Employees Club. It was to be built on a lot bounded by Monck Street (later to be known as Frood Road), Fir Lane and Fir Street.
On account of the narrowness of Fir Lane, the new building was built 15 feet inwards on this frontage in order to obtain as much natural light as possible. In addition to this construction, the company also moved their Monck St. offices, which housed its Sudbury medical and employment centre, into new quarters as part of the Employees Club complex. The new medical centre opened off Monck St., and included a doctors' consultation room, a nurses' room, separate ladies' and men's waiting rooms (unfortunately, that was a thing at one time), and examining rooms. The employment office faced Fir Street, and besides offices and waiting rooms was provided with exam booths for testing.
By March 1938, the new Inco Employees Club, all handsomely designed and appointed, was ready for use, with membership application forms already in the hands of employees during the month prior. The new club was opened with an eye to providing a wide range of facilities to Sudbury-residing INCOites, for whose convenience it was specifically built. (I would imagine the thought of travelling all the way to Copper Cliff for these same sorts of facilities would be none too pleasing at that time.)
The large auditorium was the dominant feature and hub of all of the action, with a fully equipped stage for concerts and theatrical presentations, a large seating area with a smooth dance floor. The auditorium was also marked off for four regulation badminton courts, as well as volleyball courts, with table tennis setups off to the side.
On the same floor as the auditorium was a comfortably furnished lounge that included tables for bridge games, social teas and light lunches. The club’s kitchen was always prepared to supply tea or light lunches to members, and to cater for all dances and other entertainment.
A reading room nearby was supplied with the latest newspapers, leading magazines and periodicals, and (of course) Nickel Information Bureau publications. In order to ensure that the club was well taken care of at all times, a living space was also set aside for the building superintendent to reside.
On the ground floor below the auditorium and facing onto Fir Street was built a gymnasium for basketball games, which also included boxing and wrestling equipment, as well as a handball court. A billiard room was furnished with three billiard-snooker tables for employees’ leisure. And, last but certainly not least, there existed six bowling lanes and an observation gallery for the large numbers of spectators who came out to watch.
A gymnastic Instructor was engaged by the club and physical training classes were specifically organized and tailored for the young people in members' families as well as for the members themselves and their wives.
At its peak, the Inco Club had a membership of more than 8,000. It was administered by a board of directors (as opposed to the company itself) and special committees were struck to organize all specific activities. Membership was restricted to employees who paid the annual dues of $6 through payroll deductions (payable three times a year).
Only members were permitted use of the recreational facilities, however, the wives of married members were in receipt of cards entitling them to all club privileges. Eventually, the innovation of guest cards, so members could invite their friends to share in club social events, proved very popular. Members also received special discounts for any special events that were staged at the club.
The facility played an important role in fulfilling the social and recreational needs of employees from the time it opened until the mid-1960s. In the pre-television days, it had something for everyone and it was an important meeting place for employees.
A year after first opening its doors, on March 17, the Inco Employees Club celebrated its first anniversary by looking back on a year of widely varied activity, and much success in its mission of making INCOites happier and better acquainted with one another. More than 400 couples attended a daytime celebration that included food, a huge birthday cake and music by Inco Club mainstays, “Paul Koster and his melody men.”
Some idea of the use to which the club facilities were put during that first year can be gathered from the following individual counts in each department during the month of February 1939 alone, which were presented at the aforementioned anniversary party: bowling, 12,528 users; billiards, 3,451 users; badminton, 1,740 users; dances, 450 couples; at the 27 teas and luncheons, 540 people; ladies' gym classes, 336 women; boys' and girls' gym classes, 664 children; ladies' sewing classes, 234 women; basketball, 260 players; at the two bridge parties, 148 card players.
Now, obviously, to enumerate every single event that ever occurred at the Inco Employees Club would take up many a paragraph (and I’m under strict orders to keep this column under 10,000 words) so instead we will take a look at some of the most important re-occurring events, as well as a few historical one-offs.
In its heyday, the Inco Employees Club was practically a non-stop operation. Six bowling lanes bore the efforts of employees all day long (1939 usage alone accounts for over 400 users per day). Appointments were expected to be made if one wanted to play at one of the four (originally three) billiard tables.
Tennis courts were eventually made available to employees and were located where the parking lot behind the old Sudbury Star building is now. Badminton, an extremely popular winter sport, was played whenever the auditorium was available. In the pre-war years, at least 125 players were regularly partaking in the badminton program alone.
Basketball was another big attraction at the club with approximately 100 spectators regularly taking in games of the six teams of the inter-plant league.
Every Monday night was wrestling night at the Inco Club. In the years before wrestling became the sports entertainment brand that it is now, fans would line up to see the athletic antics of "Whipper" Billy Watson, the Garvin brothers and Gene Kiniski in the ring.
In October 1966, a combined attendance of 3,100 spectators (spread out over two cards) witnessed Montrealer Édouard Carpentier individually take on each of the Garvin Brothers of Alabama. Along with these decidedly light-hearted athletic competitions (by comparison), the club was also the scene of an unfortunate (and rather archaic) sporting event in 1949, when 1,500 spectators came out to watch Herb Parks of North Bay go toe to paw for 12 minutes with a bear known by the moniker of Gorgeous Gus of Alaska.
Boxing was also very popular and fans packed into the Inco Club to view cards involving the best local and regional boxers, including Donovan legend Johnny Teale. As the INCO Triangle once put it, “some of Northern Ontario’s finest mitt and mat artists are found in the ranks of INCO workers.”
Another very popular activity at the club (which could also degenerate into fisticuffs under the right conditions) was the Bingo night every Wednesday evening. In 1944, the weekly parties were reported to attract 800 people for the night’s 20 games.
Through the month of December special “big turkey" bingos were featured where winners received a turkey instead of prize money. People used to arrive at 4 p.m. in order to make sure they could get a table for 8 p.m.
It was claimed the only time the Inco Club ever lost money on an event it sponsored involved a bingo. With a snowstorm raging outside, a decision was made to carry on with the scheduled bingo. Unfortunately, only 25 people showed up in the hall and, caught short, the club was forced to give out IOU's to the winners, that put them in the red for a few weeks.
All of the major first aid competitions up to and including the R.D. Parker Shield finale (a competition between the first aid teams across all of the company’s mines and smelters) were staged in the auditorium. This was in addition to the regular First Aid training courses held at the club, which attracted hundreds of employees every year (in fact, 1951 was a high-water mark for the program with 900 men attending). Not a session would go by without seeing at least one unlucky volunteer immobilized and wrapped up like a mummy so that his co-workers could practice on him.
Every December the Inco Club was the scene of the various plants childrens' Christmas parties. No outside bookings were taken during the month, as the club was donated to each of the plant associations.
In December 1939, for instance, an army of 2,000 children took the club by storm receiving presents from Santa and his helpers in the Frood Mine Welfare Association. This was followed a few days later by 600 little guests of the ORCO Security Association. A large “Rockefeller Square-esque” Christmas tree would always be erected at the front of the auditorium with its crowning star nearly reaching to the actual stars while nearly touching the high vaulted ceilings.
In the 1950s, the Inco Club would go to the dogs (literally, in this case) as the Sudbury and District Kennel Club hosted its annual obedience training classes. In 1956, Mrs. Marion Urwin, well-known for her training prowess across the Nickel Belt, ran a 12-week class that graduated 20 formerly cantankerous canines.
Not only was the club the scene of a myriad sporting events, concerts and lavish social events, it sometimes also served a more serious purpose for the community. In October 1956, the auditorium of the Inco Club in Sudbury was the scene of a great community endeavour when 5,319 pre-school children between the ages of six months and six years received their first of Dr. Jonas Salk’s groundbreaking polio vaccinations at a three-day clinic organized by Dr. J.B. Cook, the Sudbury and District medical officer of health.
The office of the Inco Medical Centre gave invaluable assistance in the project, which was considered a very gratifying success by all of those involved.
Even with all of the sporting pursuits available, in the end, it was the entertainment function of the Inco Club that made it so important to employees. The big band sound was provided for patrons on a regular basis by Paul Koster, and later, Johnny Juryzak or Wally Johnston. So well attended were these dances that people had to make reservations to get in.
Outside attractions were also brought to the club. The most successful concert ever held at the Inco Club was put on in the early 1960s.
People lined up outside the doors right down Frood Road to see and hear singer Patty Hervey. At the time, she had a hit single entitled "Mr. Heartache". Her opener was a relatively unknown (for a short time anyways) folk singer named Gordon Lightfoot. Twice a year another Canadian folk icon, Don Messer and his Islanders were booked. Other favorites included Mart Kenney and His Western Gentlemen and Norma Locke (who just so happened to be Kenney’s wife).
Unfortunately, the advent of television gave people a new window on the (proverbial) stars. With entertainment at home, there were fewer reasons for people to go out.
As people found their diversions elsewhere, the Inco Club's functions gradually changed. It was no longer a central recreational center for employees. The wrestling and boxing promotions ended (or moved to the larger Sudbury Community Arena). The bingos and bridge tournaments stopped. The hall was licensed and began to be rented out mostly for special occasions such as retirements and weddings. The club also served as a drop-in center for pensioners.
For six years in the 1970s, the company donated space to the young Sudbury Theatre Centre. With that assistance, the growth of live theatre in the city commenced. Actress Yvonne De Carlo (yes, Herman Munster’s wife) once performed in an STC production, and was remembered for insisting on having a drink of vodka with a fresh rose in it before going on stage.
In September 1973, viewers of the entire MCTV Network enjoyed the first of what was hoped to be a series of productions by local performers. Three days of filming in the Sudbury Theatre Centre, which was still in its infancy, produced a two-hour film called “Love Rides the Rails.”
It was still a grand old building, but by the early 1980s, its heyday was long past. The end of the Inco Club as Sudburians knew it was inevitable based on changing patterns of recreation.
When the Inco Employees Club on Frood Road was presented to the Cambrian Foundation in the early 1980s, it marked the passing into history of a grand social and recreational institution in this city. Its donation to the Cambrian Foundation was seen as a good thing.
As Val O’Neill, employee of the Club for 35 years, stated at the time, “I would have felt sad if they put the old wrecking ball to it.”
The Cambrian Foundation was founded when Inco donated the building to Cambrian College. As Shawn Poland, executive director of the Cambrian Foundation, stated in 2006, “Once we got that building, it provided the impetus for the college to form the Cambrian Foundation, which has been raising money (through running and operating the rental hall) and providing scholarships, awards and bursaries to Cambrian students for almost 25 years.”
In November 2006, it was announced that the former Inco Club building would be sold to Freelandt Caldwell Reilly, a public accounting firm, as the Cambrian Foundation had decided to “move home” to the main Barrydowne campus of Cambrian College.
All of the money raised from the sale of the building went toward bursaries and scholarships within the Cambrian Foundation. Freelandt Caldwell Reilly remains in the building to this day.
Well dear readers, the band has played its last note and this week’s column is done. Now it’s your turn to share with us the memories that you have. Were you (or any of your family) members of the Club? Did you attend a dance, a concert or one of the large annual INCO Christmas parties? Share your memories or photos by emailing Jason Marcon at [email protected] or the editor at [email protected]
Jason Marcon is a writer and history enthusiast in Greater Sudbury. He runs the Coniston Historical Group and the Sudbury Then and Now Facebook page. Memory Lane is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
