Over 500 people visited the site of the former Cockshutt Moulded Aircraft factory during the Doors Open Along the Grand event on Saturday, May 10, 2025.
Doors Open Along the Grand is presented in partnership with Doors Open Ontario, an annual program of the Ontario Heritage Trust. Every year, visitors to Doors Open events gain rare access to buildings and spaces that are typically closed to the public or to sites that normally charge admission.
This year, 32 municipalities throughout the province took part in the program, and for the first time ever, the City of Brantford, the County of Brant and Six Nations of the Grand River, came together to present Doors Open Along the Grand.
During the one-day event, residents and out-of-town visitors alike were given free access to explore 17 heritage buildings and sites across all three communities, including the former Cockshutt Moulded Aircraft factory.
Located in the Eagle Place neighbourhood, the Cockshutt Plow Company first built the 148 Mohawk St. facility during the Second World War.
At the time, the aircraft division supplied critical military aircraft parts, and the building was specifically constructed to produce airplane fuselages and other components.
Hosted by Vincenzo Capotorto (the building’s current owner), the Canadian Industrial Heritage Centre (CIHC) and Brant Theatre Workshops, the event featured a host of interpretive displays, historical artifacts, old newspaper clippings, an old documentary film and a reading of the play, “The Footlocker,” which was written by Brantford’s own Vincent Ball.
Rob Adlam, a volunteer with the CIHC, said the event was a great opportunity for locals to learn a bit about the building they so frequently drive by.
“The building was built back in 1942 but the Cockshutt Moulded Aircraft division didn’t start operating until January of 1943. Following the end of the Second World War, military contracts were canceled, so aircraft production obviously ceased, and it was converted to harvester combine production from the end of the war, until April 1985 when it closed,” he said. “Having grown up in Brantford and being the fifth generation working in industry in Brantford, there’s a lot of history hiding in plain sight. A lot of people drive by this place and have no idea what it is. That’s nothing against them, it’s just because it’s gone uncelebrated, uninterpreted and left to the dust pile of history. We’ve had former White Farm Equipment employees here today talking about their experiences in this building and those are real people. They’re not dusty artifacts, they made their living here and made a difference with innovation… they put Branford on the map.”
While the facility was originally known for building various parts for several military aircrafts, the Cockshutt Moulded Aircraft Division’s over 6,000 employees (many of whom were women) primarily created the fuselages of two British airplanes, the Avro Anson training aircraft and the de Havilland Mosquito bomber.
“They produced over 600 planes and by the end of the war, they were producing the Mosquito, which was sort of Canada’s wonder weapon,” said Peter Muir, CIHC board member and Artistic Director of Brant Theatre Workshops. “It was the fastest plane in the allied arsenal and it was quite feared by the Germans.”
While there were plenty of interesting treasures on display, Tony Cockshutt, a descendent of the Cockshutt family and CIHC board member, said that his favourite artifact of the day was actually the building itself.
“For me, it’s the top of the superstructure which is all wooden,” he said. “Because it was built during the war, the steel presumably all went to manufacturing wartime equipment and so the building has these huge wooden beams. Given that the building is over 80 years old, it’s still in great condition, plus, there’s these beautiful windows up at the top there, which provide just a lot of great natural light.”
While Adlam said he completely agreed with Cockshutt, he said that one particularly interesting artifact was a section of an exhaust manifold for an Avro Anson made right in Brantford with the Cockshutt tag still on it.
“It actually came to us from a flight training school in Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, and so the fact that it’s come home to Brantford where it belongs is particularly gratifying,” said Adlam. “These exhaust manifolds were manufactured for various planes, the Anson being one of them, and you can actually see the original tag is still on it with the parts numbers and when it was made, and it says here ‘manufactured by the Cockshutt Plow Company in Brantford Ontario.”
Melissa Jones, one of the many Brantford residents who attended the event, said that she had no idea the history behind the building.
“I honestly thought this was just another factory building, I had no idea it was built to specifically help with the war,” she said. “There’s so many cool details all throughout the building like the wooden beams and the track that runs the length of the floor which was used to help move parts from one section to the next; it’s really something. I’m originally from Sarnia and so this whole Doors Open event has just been a great opportunity to learn about a few of the places in the community.”
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
