Batawa is a small community in southeastern Ontario, Canada, in the city of Quinte West. The community was set up by the Bata Shoe Company as a planned community around a shoe factory. The factory opened in 1939 and closed in 2000.
Batawa is a small community in southeastern Ontario, Canada, in the city of Quinte West. The community was set up by the Bata Shoe Company as a planned community around a shoe factory. The factory opened in 1939 and closed in 2000.
Conditions in Europe prior to World War II led Thomas J. Bata to search for a location in Canada to transfer operations. Batawa's location was chosen for its proximity to a lake, a railway, a highway, an airport and cheap land. A factory town was built and opened in 1939. The Bata company owned the town, providing accommodations at a reasonable rate to its workers. The company controlled virtually all aspects of the village. There was a Bata grocery store, Bata recreation hall, Bata clubs, Bata teams and a Bata shoe store. Many of the residents were immigrants from Bata's homeland, Czechoslovakia, who immigrated at the time of the factory's construction. [1] One prominent group of Bata's European refugees to resettle in Canada were the employees of the Bata Shoe Company from Zlín, Moravia, in 1939. Tomáš J. Baťa and 82 workers re-assembled the business in Batawa. The company would go on to produce military equipment for the Allied War effort. [2]
The town was initially the headquarters of Bata Shoe operations in Canada; the headquarters moved to Toronto in 1964.
During the latter half of the 20th century, tariff barriers on shoe imports into Canada were reduced, allowing more and more low-cost shoes into Canada. Eventually, Bata determined the factory could not continue as a viable business operation and closed the factory in March 2000. As part of a strategy to cut costs, Bata consolidated production in lower-wage countries overseas. [3] Bata Shoes would close its retail shoe stores in Canada one year later in 2001.
Dalton Company is converting the old Batawa shoe plant into a residential condo complex. [4]
Batawa is situated on the west bank of the Trent River, and nearby is Lock 4 of the Trent-Severn Waterway, a major water transportation system. [5]
Batawa is represented by three councillors on Quinte West City Council for the Ward of Sidney.
There are several books about the Bata's including: Uprooted and Transplanted, [6] the story of a family that immigrated to Canada and worked at the Batawa facility.
The Bay of Quinte is a long, narrow bay shaped like the letter "Z" on the northern shore of Lake Ontario in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is just west of the head of the Saint Lawrence River that drains the Great Lakes into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It is located about 200 kilometres (120 mi) east of Toronto and 350 kilometres (220 mi) west of Montreal.
The Trent–Severn Waterway is a 386-kilometre-long canal route connecting Lake Ontario at Trenton to Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, at Port Severn. Its major natural waterways include the Trent River, Otonabee River, Kawartha Lakes, Lake Simcoe, Lake Couchiching and Severn River. Its scenic, meandering route has been called "one of the finest interconnected systems of navigation in the world".
Trenton is a large unincorporated community in Central Ontario in the municipality of Quinte West, Ontario, Canada. Located on the Bay of Quinte, it is the starting point for the Trent-Severn Waterway, which continues northwest to Peterborough and eventually Port Severn on Georgian Bay.
Bata Corporation is a Czech multinational footwear and fashion accessory manufacturer and retailer, founded in the town of Zlín, today in the Czech Republic. After World War II, its factories in socialist states were nationalized, while its branches in capitalist states remained family-owned. It is now based in Lausanne, Switzerland. The principal subsidiaries are Bata Europe, Bata North America, Bata Asia-Pacific-Africa and Bata Latin America.
Coboconk is a community in the city of Kawartha Lakes, in the south-central portion of the Canadian province of Ontario. The village lies at the junction of Highway 35 and former Highway 48, on the northern tip of Balsam Lake, the highest point on the Trent–Severn Waterway. Coboconk has a prominent role in the logging, limestone, and tourism industries of the Kawartha Lakes region over the past 150 years.
Zlín is a city in southeastern Moravia in the Czech Republic. It has about 75,000 inhabitants. It is the seat of the Zlín Region and it lies on the Dřevnice river. The development of the modern city is closely connected to the Bata Shoes company and its social scheme, developed after the World War I. From 1949 to 1990, the city was renamed Gottwaldov.
Tomáš Baťa was a Czech entrepreneur and founder of the Bata Shoes company. It became one of the world's biggest multinational retailers, manufacturers, and distributors of footwear and accessories. His successful career was cut short when he died in a plane accident due to bad weather.
The City of Kawartha Lakes is a unitary municipality in Central Ontario, Canada. It is a municipality legally structured as a single-tier city; however, Kawartha Lakes is the size of a typical Ontario county and is mostly rural. It is the second largest single-tier municipality in Ontario by land area.
Quinte West is a city, geographically located in but administratively separated from Hastings County, in Southern Ontario, Canada. It is located on the western end of the Bay of Quinte on Lake Ontario. The Lake Ontario terminus of the Trent–Severn Waterway is located in the municipality.
Central Ontario is a secondary region of Southern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario that lies between Georgian Bay and the eastern end of Lake Ontario.
The Trent River is a river in southeastern Ontario which flows from Rice Lake to empty into the Bay of Quinte on Lake Ontario. This river is part of the Trent-Severn Waterway which leads to Georgian Bay. The river is 90 kilometres (56 mi) long. The Trent drains a large portion of south-central Ontario, including most of the Kawartha Lakes and their supplying watersheds.
The Bata Shoe Museum (BSM) is a museum of footwear and calceology in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum's building is situated near the northwest of the University of Toronto's St. George campus, in downtown Toronto. The 3,665-square-metre (39,450 sq ft) museum building was designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects, with Raymond Moriyama as the lead architect.
Tomáš Jan Baťa,, also known as Thomas Bata Jr. and Tomáš Baťa ml., was a Czech-born Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He ran the Bata Shoe Company from the 1940s until the 1980s.
Severn Bridge is a small community in the Town of Gravenhurst, of the District of Muskoka in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is located approximately 160 kilometres north of Toronto, on the Severn River, roughly halfway between Orillia and Gravenhurst. Its population was around 300 in 1992. It was founded in the nineteenth century. The village is served by important road, rail, water links and its postal services and rural route are handled in Washago, Ontario.
The Murray Canal is a canal in the municipalities of Quinte West and Brighton, Ontario, Canada, and runs from the western end of the Bay of Quinte to Presqu'ile Bay on Lake Ontario. It is approximately 8 kilometres (5 mi) in length and has maximum depth of 9 feet (2.7 m). The canal shortens the trip for boats wishing to access Lake Ontario from the central and western Bay of Quinte by avoiding having to go around the whole peninsula of Prince Edward County.
Jan Antonín Baťa was a Czech shoe manufacturer from Uherské Hradiště, half-brother of Tomáš Baťa.
The Township of Verulam was a rural municipality within the former Victoria County, now the city of Kawartha Lakes. It was bounded on the north by the geographic township of Somerville, the south by the geographic township of Emily, the west by the geographic township of Fenelon, and the east by the County of Peterborough. For the purposes of government, land surveying and reference, it is now properly referred to as the "Geographic Township of Verulam".
Batawa Ski Hill is a ski area in the municipality of Quinte West in eastern Ontario, Canada, that was established in 1959 by employees of Bata Shoes just outside the community of Batawa. The area offers lighted night skiing, a terrain park, and snowshoeing.
Burleigh Falls is both a geological feature and a small community in Peterborough County, Ontario, Canada. The falls form the boundary between the municipality of North Kawartha to the north and the municipality of Selwyn to the south.
Sonja I. Bata was a Swiss Canadian businesswoman, philanthropist, collector and museum founder, who trained as an architect.
