Foray Into Fiction: The Factory Window
The Hallowe'en discussion was about haunted places around the City. I mentioned one, the old McCormick factory. The people around the table looked at me, and at each other. I told the story.
The McCormick factory, as it is still known, sits vacant and dark 100 years after it was constructed in 1914. The Company was first owned by the McCormick family, then was sold in 1937 during the "Great Depression" to George Weston Limited that continued on with the business successfully for 50 years. After, the Company was sold to Culinar, and 7 years later was sold to Beta Brands. Then Beta Brands went into Court ordered receivership after 9 years, and the factory closed, left abandoned.
Frank McCormick was the youngest of the three brothers who bought the Company from their late father's estate in 1907 after working with their father, Thomas, for many years. They would construct the now century old then state of the art factory. When the Company was sold to Weston in 1937, Frank stayed with the Company. He bought shares, holdings, and interests, in the Company, and he would be President of the Company until his death in 1965. He was the last surviving McCormick to be with the Company.
The arson that occurred at the vacant factory in 2012 was the first time I heard something was strange about the old McCormick factory. After the fire, contained to the 1950s built warehouse section, was extinguished, firefighters were told someone was seen in the 1914 part of the factory in one of the upper windows. A search of the factory found no one. Then I started hearing more stories of a figure in the upper window of the vacant factory.
When people who had seen this figure contacted me, I was somewhat dismissive. There were people in the factory who had broken in. Anyone could have been in there and happen to be looking out one of the windows. No, this was not what it was. They didn't know or care anything about the McCormick factory. It was abandoned, and it was an eye sore many told me they thought. Each person told me the same story.
Walking along the sidewalk in front of the McCormick factory at night, the person would have a strange feeling, and then the urge to look at the building. When they did turn their head to look, they always looked directly at the same window, and instantly into the face of a figure in the window staring back. The figure would vanish in a instant as soon as the person looked away. The figure is seen in an upper window in the tower portion of the factory that faces the street from the front. From questioning the witnesses, I determined the window is a window of the old guest waiting room, and later possibly the Board Room, or senior level offices of the factory. The figure is described in all accounts as being an average size man, in his mid 40s, short dark hair, dressed in a dark suit and a striped tie.
Curious to find out what these people had seen, I gathered some old photographs of groups of people. All were company photos, but only two were from McCormicks. I showed these photos to each person who witnesses the figure in the window, not revealing anything about my motive. When one certain photo was shown, each person always reacted to it. "That's him!"
The photo is a group McCormick's employees posed standing on the front steps of the factory in 1928. Pointing to a person in the middle of the back row, each person identified this man as the same person seen staring out the vacant factory window at night. The man in the photo they point to, wearing a dark suit and a striped tie, is Frank McCormick.
© Trevor Dailey