Two more commemorative bronze plaques have been stolen from city parks, adding to a growing tally that began last year when several small plaques were pried off memorial benches in Riverside Park.
On Monday, a resident noticed a large bronze plaque at the entrance to Galt's Victoria Park missing and presumed stolen to be sold for scrap.
Down the road, next to the Main Street bridge in Queen's Square, Nick Loewen snapped a photo and posted it to Facebook a few hours later showing a bare concrete post in the Dalton Court Parkette.
The bronze plaque that was attached to it said "A time capsule lies behind here...preserving some of our heritage for future generations." It was sealed on July 15, 1983 and is to be opened on July 15, 2083.
The parkette, created a few years after a building was demolished, is named after Spencer Dalton who ran his pharmacy out of the adjacent building.
Mike Greenhill posted his photo showing the outline of the Victoria Park plaque in whatever adhesive was used to secure it to a large granite slab over 120 years ago. It commemorates the 1901 land donation that led to the creation of the park.
The oxidized bronze sign read: "Victoria Park, Acquired by the town of Galt, largely through the generosity of Langdon Wilks, ESQ, 1901."
The slab the plaque was mounted to sits on a fieldstone plinth next to the sidewalk near the park entrance off Blenheim Road.
Former journalist Kevin Swayze hosted about 30 people on a Jane's Walk in May on a heritage tour of west Galt and says the group didn't walk by the plaque, but now he wishes they had.
"I’ll miss seeing the plaque on my regular walks past Victoria Park," he said in an email to CambridgeToday. "It always reminded me of how deeply West Galt residents embrace their history. I hope that a scrap metal dealer refuses to melt it down for cash – and instead immediately calls the police."
Last week, former Waterloo Region Museum curator Tom Reitz posted on Facebook about the missing plaque at Otto Klotz's former schoolhouse on Queenston Road in Preston.
The recent thefts are part of a continuing and disturbing trend Mayor Jan Liggett says she started to hear about eight years ago when "anything made from metal" began disappearing from private and public property.
"We have lost copper downspouts from our heritage buildings in the past and, occurring at an alarming rate, bronze plaques from our bridges, off of our buildings and memorial sites," she said in an email to CambridgeToday.
In April 2023, staff at Trinity Anglican Church noticed its heavy bronze heritage plaque was stolen, two months after the perpetrator was caught on security camera, screwdriver in hand, prying it off the front of the Melville Street church.
In the fall of 2022, a commemorative plaque was reported missing from a trail in the Dryden Tract, just west of Cambridge.
Then in the spring of last year, plaques began to disappear from memorial park benches.
Liggett calls those thefts particularly heinous since the plaques represent the cherished memories and legacies of loved ones.
"Their theft not only disrespects those lost, but also deeply wounds the families and communities who hold them dear."
"The worst part is that we cannot get these items back as they are usually melted down to an unidentifiable form and sold to metal recyclers."
"To say I am disappointed would be an understatement," she added. "It is not a strong enough word. I encourage anyone who may have any information about who is responsible for these important pieces of Cambridge history going missing to call Waterloo Regional Police at 519-570-9777.
The Canadian scrap metal industry says it's committed to fighting theft and has teamed up with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries in Washington, DC to promote ScrapTheftAlert.com, a tool that allows anyone to alert the scrap industry of significant thefts of materials in the United States and Canada.
Upon validation and review, alerts you post are broadcast by email to all subscribed users within a 100 mile radius of where the incident occurred.
