In late 1914, audiences roared with laughter at the latest Keystone Studios film comedy “ Dough and Dynamite ,” starring Charlie Chaplin. It told the story of a bakery blown up by a stick of dynamite concealed in some bread dough.

Not many years later, residents in St. Catharines had their own frightening encounters with explosives. It was no laughing matter.

At 1:20 a.m., on March 21, 1920, an explosion rocked the normally quiet Facer Street neighbourhood between Currie Street and Concord Avenue. The Standard reported that an “infernal machine” had been placed “by a person or persons unknown” in the doorway of International Co-Operative Bakery Co. Ltd. at 29 Facer St.

“The explosion blew out the entire lower front of the building, rending great joists as if they were paper,” it was r

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