L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse

The L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse, photographed by David Othen, April 1979.

L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse, Windsor

Mile 31.51 from Windsor Junction on the Halifax Subdivision

• Facing the Windsor Station
• Insulated Apple Warehouse
• Wooden construction
• Capacity: 10,000 barrels of apples

History

The warehouse was built in 1906 by the Lewis Albert Armstrong and Sons Apple Exporting Company. It was a wooden second generation apple warehouse built with wooden knees and iron tensioning rods. For many decades it employed a seasonal packing crew every fall to pack apples delivered from Windsor area orchards which were loaded on boxcars for shipment to Halifax from September until April. One of two apple warehouses in downtown Windsor (along with the B. Sexton Warehouse to the westt), its location across from the Windsor Station platform ensured that it often appeared in the background of photographs of locomotives photos in Windsor. The warehouse became more prominent in later years when it face the access road to Highway 101 near the Windsor Tim Hortons. The warehouse became a factory outlet shop for the nearby Windsor Wear textile mill in the 1990s. It became something of a Windsor icon in its final years due to large mural depicting a railway scene which incorporated the warehouse windows into the artwork. The warehouse was acquired by the Windsor and Hantsport Railway who used the spur to park railyway track maintenance box cars and track repair equipment. However, following the mothballing of the railway in 2011, the warehouse sat unused and unmaintained, racking up $95,766 in unpaid taxes owed by the Windsor and Hantsport Railway. The warehouse was purchased at a forced tax sale by the Town of Windsor with hopes that it would encourage commercial development by the river. The town judged that the warehouse was beyond repair and approved demolition in October 2019. It was demolished on November 19, 2019.

Gallery

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  Locomotive No. 557 at Windsor with the L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse and insulated rail car loading apples in background, winter 1924.

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  Locomotive No. 540 at Windsor with the L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse with box car loading apples in background, 1938.

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  Locomotive No. 999 in Windsor with the L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse with outside braced boxcar loading in the background, circa 1950.

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  The new Windsor Station with the old freight shed in the centre and the L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse, Aug. 7, 1973.

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  Train No. 1 at Windsor Station with the L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse to left and the Avon River Causeway to right, Aug 17, 1977.

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  The L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse in Windsor, April 1979.

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  Windsor, with CPR Locomotive 8132 and freight train on the Avon River Causeway and a Southern Railroad boxcar parked at the L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse, Oct. 17, 1979.

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  The L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse in Windsor with WHRC Caboose 150, Feb. 28, 2005.

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  The L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse with its mural in Windsor, photographed by Wayne Simon, Mar. 14, 2017.

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  The L. A. Armstrong Apple Warehouse under demolition, photographed by John D. Wilson, Nov. 19, 2019.