History buffs are in for a treat Saturday with an event commemorating the 70th anniversary of the last big flood to swamp Brampton’s downtown core.

A vintage film showing the massive flood one day after it started on March 16, 1948, rare photographs, newspaper clippings and more will be on display in the Brampton City Hall Conservatory between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Organizer and local historian Steve Collie said hundreds attended an event 10 years ago on the 60th anniversary. One special guest who dropped by was Tommy Dixon. He appears as a child being rescued in an iconic photograph from that time. In the photograph, he is sitting on the shoulders of a man who was chest-deep in water on Main Street.

“I’d love to have him out again,” Collie said of Dixon.

Saturday’s free event will also feature a display of the city’s proposed River Walk. Peel Art Gallery, Museum and Archives will bring along some historic photographs from the archives, and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority will also be represented.

Collie said he will talk about the first river diversion built in the 1800s in the form of tunnels under Main and Queen Streets.

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