Name/Title
Engine - Knowles horizontal piston valve vacuum pumpDescription
Knowles Vacuum pump steam engine (disassembled) From Sidney Rubber Roofing.
Article from "Sidney by the Sea" October 2014
Sidney Rubber Roofing Company
One hundred years ago Sidney literally became a household name in Western Canada when the Sidney Rubber and Roofing Company began producing quality rubberised roofing felt and asphalt roofing paper. With a high demand for roofing materials in the Greater Victoria area, a small group of men found support in organising and incorporating the Sidney Rubber and Roofing Company, Ltd., on October 23, 1912. Known also as the Royal Rubber & Roofing Company during its first few months of existence, the company quickly purchased 4 acres of land along the seashore spanning from Oakland Avenue (now Oakville) to Ocean Avenue, just north of the Anacortes Ferry.
By mid November 1912, real estate companies were promoting the company as a sure sign of the growth and development of Sidney as a major seaport, which the townsite leaders were striving for. At the time, it also was reported that the roofing company was to begin immediately erecting an extensive plant for “the manufacture of asphalt roofing and builders’ paper, and also asphalt and all products made from crude oil.” These by-products included oil and asphalt for street paving, low grade lubricating oils which would be used for machinery and cars, “tree spray for fruit trees, newspaper ink, black enamel, paints for iron work and ship bottoms, insulating tape, and damp proof compounds, deck pitch, marine glue,… etc.”
By the beginning of June 1914, the plant was completed, employing 25 to 30 men and producing 300 rolls of rubberised felt per day. At the same time, the company had signed a new agreement with the General Petroleum Products Corporation of California, wherein a large tank was to be built that could hold 65,000 barrels of oil. This meant that most freighters plying the North Pacific would call at Sidney for fuel, thus making Sidney a major world port. These plans however, were rudely disrupted two months later, when War broke out in Europe.
Even with the interruption of War, the company was able to continue producing product, and by the end of the war was again considering expanding its operations in Sidney. This required a large supply of fresh water. However, this could not be obtained and the company decided instead to build a second plant at Victoria in 1920. This was the beginning of the end of the companies operations in Sidney. On April 23, 1921, a fire broke out in the Sidney plant, with a loss estimated between $50,000 and $60,000 (about $650,000 to $750,000 in today’s dollars). The decision was made not to reopen the plant, but to concentrate on the new plant in Victoria.
Over the next several decades, the plant property laid abandoned, and overgrown with vegetation. Today, the area has been developed with a mixture of single and multi-family dwellings, and one would hardly recognise that a large manufacturing company resided on the property in days gone-by. dwellings, and one would hardly recognise that a large manufacturing company resided on the property in days gone-by.
