This watercolour, by John Freeling Hunt, shows the back of the Queen Street Court House. If you stood near the public washrooms or the back of Balzac’s Coffee on King Street, you would be in almost the same spot. The tower in front was used by the fire department to dry its hoses and stood 65 feet tall. That is almost 25 feet higher than the Court House building. After a fire, the firemen would hook six lengths of hose to a round wooden hook and then hoist them up to the top by using the fire engine. The water could then drain out and the hoses could dry, hopefully before the next call. The tower no longer exists — more on that next week. The door to the right is the entrance to the Tourism Niagara-on-the-Lake welcome centre.