There is a problem with a street in Yorkton. No, no, no. I’m not talking potholes, although everyone else seems to be, from what I hear. And I’m not talking streets closed for construction.
Potholes happen. With the kind of winter we’ve had, they happen even worse than usual. And construction… well, if you’re going to rebuild roads around here, you have a handful of months to do it, so I’m okay with putting up with the inconvenience.
The problem I have is with a one-block piece of road between Livingstone Street and Argyle Street, a one-block piece that is basically an extension of Beck Avenue, which runs north and south from Foster Street across the railway tracks to Livingstone Street, where the old mill still stands.
You see, the street sign on the corner of that street and Argyle says Beck Avenue. It isn’t. For years, until the new street signs were put up (and they are very nice signs, I might add), the plain old green and white sign said Second Street.
The official city maps and plans all say Second Street.
It has been Second Street for more than a century, until somebody put up the wrong sign.
In the grand scheme of things, I’ll admit, it’s not important. There are no buildings on that one-block piece of street. Nobody’s address was affected by changing the name.
But it has done away with a most interesting piece of Yorkton history, and that’s a shame. History and folklore related to where we live and work and play is important. It gives us, and our community, a sense of who we are and where we came from. And Second Street has a history.
Back in the early 1910s, there was a businessman in Yorkton named Levi Beck. He owned a number of businesses, and a huge farm that stretches from present-day King Street to York Lake – four square miles of land so big that even he didn’t know what all he owned. The story goes that someone tried to sell him a piece of his own land, and he almost fell for the scam.
There was also a hotel owner, Harry Bronfman, who ran the Balmoral Hotel, a Yorkton landmark for decades, until it burned down some 30 years ago. Harry was of the famous Bronfmans, later of Seagram distillery fame.
It was said that Harry was also in the distillery business when he was here, during the prohibition years, making “medicinal” potions. Some of which, it is said, found their way across the border into the United States. Or so the story goes. All unofficial, of course; there is scant mention of Harry and Yorkton in the official Bronfman records.
But back to the street sign.
Harry, not all that well-liked, apparently, ran against Levi for mayor of Yorkton in 1910. A two-way race, and Harry lost. But as consolation, Levi promised him that a street would be named after him.
And so, Second Street. It deserves a proper street sign.
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