Bankruptcy of The Eaton's Chain
When the Eaton's chain declared bankruptcy in 1999, countless television news stories commenced their coverage with shots of the Timothy Eaton statue. Flowers and cards were left at the base of both the Toronto and Winnipeg statues, in condolence of the end of a Canadian institution. When Sears Canada acquired many of the corporate assets of the Eaton's chain, there was a brief legal tussle between Sears and the Eaton family over ownership of the statues. Eventually, litigation was averted when the family presented documents certifying that ownership of the statues vested with the family, not the defunct chain. Soon thereafter, the Toronto statue was moved to the Royal Ontario Museum, where it stood in the museum's Eaton Court.
In 2005, as part of the Royal Ontario Museum renovations, the statue was moved to a new location in the Lower Rotunda of the museum, outside the Signy & Cléophée Eaton Theatre.
The fate of the Winnipeg statue generated more controversy. The Eaton family agreed that the statue would be moved to the Polo Park Shopping Centre, where Eaton's had years earlier opened its first suburban location in Manitoba and where Sears would be opening the only Winnipeg location of its short-lived "eatons" experiment. In 2002, Sears announced the end of the eatons mini-chain, and the Polo Park store was slated for conversion to an outlet of Eaton's historic rival, the Bay department store. Fred Eaton made arrangements for the statue to be moved to St. Mary's, Ontario, the site of one of Timothy Eaton's first stores. Heritage advocates and a group of former Winnipeg Eaton's employees sought to have the statue remain in Winnipeg. On October 22, 2002, the Manitoba government designated the statue as a protected provincial heritage object, with the cooperation of the Eaton family. It was placed in the concourse of the city's new hockey arena, the MTS Centre, which stands on the site of the now-demolished downtown Eaton's store.
Museum-goers in Toronto and hockey fans in Winnipeg continue to rub Timothy's toe for luck. While ROM generally discourages visitors from physically touching its artifacts, an exception is made for the statue, as the accompanying plaque invites museum-goers to partake in the tradition.
Read more about this topic: Timothy Eaton Statue
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