Downtown Fort William, Ontario

Downtown Fort William
Cuthbertson Block built 1908
Population 2,000	Ward McKellar and Westfort wards
Location in Thunder Bay

Downtown Fort William, also known as Downtown Thunder Bay South or the South Core, is the urban core of the former city of Fort William, the southern half of Thunder Bay, Ontario. It is centred on Victoriaville Civic Centre, an indoor shopping mall and civic centre built as part of an urban renewal project in the 1980s. It is separated from the Kaministiquia River by the Canadian Pacific Railway line, and its topography is relatively flat.

Downtown Fort William is the location of Thunder Bay City Hall, and numerous other government offices.

Downtown Fort William is one of the three nodes around which urban growth began in the Lakehead area. In 1883 the Canadian government transferred responsibility for the Transcontinental railway to the private Canadian Pacific Railway, which subsequently relocated the Lake Superior terminus from the Fort William Town Plot (West Fort William) to the lower Kaministiquia River, seven kilometres downstream from Westfort. Growth began at the intersection of Victoria Avenue and Simpson Street, because the McVicar family had negotiated an agreement with the CPR to place the railway station on the McVicar patent, and because the CPR had erected its second and third Thunder Bay grain elevators (CPR Elevators A & B) at the foot of Victoria Avenue in 1884/85 and 1888. In 1891 the Municipality of Neebing acquired land from the McKellar family and began construction of a town hall on Donald Street which, when Fort William was incorporated in 1892, became the town hall of Fort William. and due to Port Arthur's lack of a city hall, became the location of Thunder Bay City Hall after the amalgamation of the two cities in 1970.

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