Industrial Heritage

In our post-industrial times, obsolete machinery often ends its usefulness being sold for scrap. Since 1996, through its Industrial Artifacts Project volunteer committee chaired by Nicholas Rees, Kitchener has taken a different approach to these icons of yesterday.
 
Kitchener’s Industrial Artifacts Project (IAP) began with a recommendation from the City’s first culture planning document, Culture Plan I. By 2001 the IAP mandate was:

• To conserve the industrial heritage of Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge
• To collect and restore artifacts significant to the Waterloo region
• To preserve the industrial architecture of the region
• To document the stories of working people.

As a result, many industrial artifacts were collected. Today this unique collection contains over one hundred items of industrial machinery acquired from regional industries which have ceased to operate. Machinery categories include:

• Tools (stationary, hand, design, portable, power, molds and forms)
• Appliances
• Engines
• Hydro Electric
• Office equipment
• Advertising
• Architectural
• Commemorative.
  

Companies represented in the collection include:

• Blue Top Brewery
• Bonnie Stuart Shoes
• Canada Cordage
• Canada Pump/Canada Valve
• Clemmer Industries
• Cluett Peabody Canada Inc
• Epton-Goodrich Factory
• Grand River Hospital
• Kaufman Footwear Inc.
• Kaufman Rubber Co.
• Kitchener Button Co.
• Mitchell Plastics Compression
• Ontario Power Generation, Niagara Falls
• Seagrams

Visitors and residents can see many examples of the collection in outdoor settings. A few are on display in public buildings including City Hall and the Registry Theatre. For a map of locations, click here [9.5 MB].

Our regional museum, Doon Heritage Crossroads, also has an industrial artifacts collection.