CURIOSITY OVER OLD BOOKMARK OPENS UP AMAZING STORY OF ARCHIBALD W. DINGMAN

There is a lot of history wrapped up in a seven-by-two-inch bookmark nestled in the pages of a 155-year-old family heirloom book "Life of Abraham Lincoln" resting on one of my bookshelves, along with a prized collection of other antique publications that have come into my possession over the years.

The mint-condition bookmark, featuring a young Victorian girl with beautiful long blond hair (see photos), was a marketing piece produced by Dingman's Electrical Soap Company of Toronto in 1885. Coincidentally, there are still a few copies of the bookmark in private collections and currently priced on eBay at $25.98.

On the reverse side of the bookmark is an interesting message in language of the day, extolling the merits of Dingman's soap products and headed Pennywise and Poundfoolish: "Buying poor cheap soaps to do the washing with -- to save a cent! and spending pounds in medicine to restore your energies Wasted on Wash Day. You will save not only pennies and pounds, but your health by using DINGMAN'S ELECTRIC SOAP which actually does the washing itself if you will only give it It's Way."

It would seem that the company was an extemely aggressive promoter, at times pre-occupied with the competition, as seen below in another Dignman ad.

The founder of the soap company was Archibald Wayne (Archie) Dingman who had a way of making things run and making money from running them. Born into a large United Empire Loyalists family, he left his home near Picton, ON to work in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. He then settled in Toronto in the early 1880's, where he founded the aforementioned soap factory under the name Pugsley, Dingman Company Ltd. When the soap business proved profitable, Dingman began investing in other promising ventures. He was a founder and General Manager of the Scarboro Electric Railway, partnering with noted members of the business elite, Henry Pellatt (builder of Casa Loma), brewer Robert Davies and financier John Starks. The electric rail venture opened up Kingston Road to bedroom community development and earned Dingman his second fortune.

"Archie" Dingman

A Venue for “Respectable” Society: It was 1893 when Dingman completed the building of a Toronto landmark, Dingman’s Hall. He envisioned it as the way station of choice for travellers on his electric rail line, at the edge of the booming city. More than a hotel, he envisioned an event venue and salon. His clientele included the most respectable of stolid Empire social clubs – the Orange Lodge, Sons of Scotland and Maids of England.

The Heritage Toronto building has undergone numerous upgrades over the years but still stands proudly on the northwest corner of Queen Street East and Broadview Avenue in Toronto's east end.

The site was built for $25,000 in 1891. The Romanesque Revival building, was the tallest on the east side of the Don River. In its early years, it featured a the Canadian Bank of Commerce branch on the ground floor, professional offices on middle floors, and grand halls on the upper levels.

The Royal Canadian Bicycle Club was perhaps the tenant that gave Archie the greatest pride. The club had been formed from the Canadian Volunteers, a decorated militia whose regimental name was attached to a 100-member, all-male athletic group at Dingman’s Hall, eventually becoming a winter sport and curling club. The Toronto Evening Star approved of their facilities at Dingman’s Hall: “The club parlours are upholstered and furnished in the best of style and the pictures of the winning teams decorate the walls. A padded boxing room, a pool room, a card room, a smoking room, a reading room and a first class gymnasium are among the attractions.” In later years the club would focus exclusively on curling and move across Broadview in 1907 to become today’s Royal Canadian Curling Club at 131 Broadview.

Click to enlarge image.

By 1900, Archie Dingman was growing restless. He’d certainly won at soap manufacturing. His electric rail ventures had stalled as the 1890s economy softened. Perhaps he just wasn’t cut out to slide into retirement as a middling player in the hospitality sector. Maybe event space management wasn’t enough of a challenge. For whatever reason, when his soap factory burned down in 1902, rather than rebuild, he pulled up stakes at age 52 and moved to Alberta. There were reports of oil slicks forming on the surface of Sheep Creek and Dingman was intrigued by the fact that the Rockefellers of Pennsylvania were already making a fortune there.

In Alberta, Dingman formed the Calgary Natural Gas Company, and successfully drilled and supplied gas on a modest scale to local businesses. But he really struck pay dirt in 1913 and 1914 when he formed Calgary Petroleum Products Company, recruited young R.B. Bennett (future Prime Minister) and his senior law partner, James A. Lougheed (grandfather of former Premier Peter Lougheed), as investors, and drilled the Dingman 1 oil well at Leduc that launched the Alberta Oil Patch. 

Today Archibald W. Dingman is primarily remembered as providing the foundation for Canada’s oil industry in Alberta. He had great faith in the promise of the province, commenting in 1930 that he was confident that a great future awaited the oil industry in Alberta, and Turner Valley was just one of the many structures in which large quantities of oil would be found.

Dingman died 1937, 11 years before the Leduc No. 1 well would launch the modern petroleum age. But his persistence and entrepreneurial attitude set the standard for all that have followed.

Amazing what you will find with a little digging!

Dingman was truly a remarkable man who seems to have passed under the radar in Canadian history for the most part. I'm kind of glad that I have been able to put some relevant pieces together, thanks to an old bookmark that sparked my curiosity...Stories like this intrigue me and keep me coming back for more.

And oh, by the way -- about that Abraham Lincoln history, authored by Dr. J. G. Holland...It was entered according to Act of Congress, USA, in 1865 by Publisher Gurdon Bill in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. My first-print edition was included in the estate of a great aunt, Fannie Pike (1856-1940) of Strathroy, ON and subsequently left to my parents by her brother, (my grandfather) Nelson Perry, in 1950.

NOTE: Especially significant for me was finding a pencilled label glued by my father Ken Wright on Page 423 of the Lincoln history (circa 1940) making note of the famous Gettysburg Address delivered by President Lincoln, November 19, 1863 at the Soldiers' National Cemetery in Pennsylvania (location of the horrific Battle of Gettysburg at the end of the American Civil War).

Broadview Hotel (formerly Dingman's Hall),
as photographed in 1945.