The Citizen - Blyth 140th anniversary Special Edition

Celebrating Blyth’s 140th Anniversary 1877-2017

A Keepsake Commemorative Edition published by

The Citizen

PAGE 2, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

After a $4.2 million renovation, inside and out and top to bottom, Blyth Memorial Hall welcomes audiences for the 2017 Blyth Festival season. forward-thinking individuals and representatives of local groups such as the Blyth Legion, Legion Ladies Auxiliary, the Lions Club and the Blyth Festival. The group’s big plans included renovation of the hall, finding a new use for the former Blyth Public School which had been closed in 2012, and creation of a community trust fund for the village’s future needs.

Over the next couple of years the group went to work raising money including a gourmet dinner for 1,419 diners that filled two blocks of Blyth’s main street in the summer of 2014. Various grants including an

Nearing 100, Memorial Hall looks like new

Massive renovation makes the hall, whose future was once in doubt, ready for its second century

By Keith Roulston The Citizen

Former Blyth residents returning home for 2017’s 140th anniversary will see something familiar, yet different, in the village’s most iconic landmark. In the past year Blyth Memorial Hall has undergone a $4.2 million renovation that has both modernized it, and returned it to its original appearance.

For the passing visitor the most visible change will be the courtyard in front of the building, redesigned to better accommodate crowds before theatre performances and during intermissions. But look way up, and you’ll see the bell tower replicates the original that was part of the hall when it opened to great fanfare on June 5, 1921.

That tower had been replaced as part of a renovation in 1974 that made the upstairs theatre of the hall available for use again after engineers had found a design fault in the roof structure of the original building that made the upper storey unsafe. After much debate in the village as to whether repairing the building would be a wise investment of taxpayers’ money, village council had decided to spend $50,000 to replace the old roof structure with a safe new one. A simplified, square bell tower replaced the original elegant, six-sided tower.

The tower and courtyard are just the most outwardly visible of the changes that have their origin in 2013 with the formation of a community group called 14/19 Arts and Cultural Initiative made up of

essential $3.3 million contribution from the Ontario government finally meant the renovation could go ahead as soon as the 2016 Blyth Festival season ended.

The changes were literally from top to bottom: from the bell tower and repairing the flat-roofed sections of 1980 and 1990 additions to tearing up the floor in the basement meeting room to solve moisture issues that have long plagued the building. Improvements ranged from cosmetic such as a new wrought-iron railing in the theatre’s balcony to the practical need for new heating and air conditioning equipment.

New seats (yet with a period look to match the building’s heritage) and lighting were installed in the theatre along with the most modern audiovisual equipment. The biggest changes, however, are in the downstairs meeting room. Gone are the washrooms in the front corners of the room built during the 1980 renovation to meet the needs of swelling crowds at the Blyth Festival. They been replaced by enlarged washrooms in the 1990 link addition.

The kitchen has been moved from the rear of the original hall into the 1980 addition and given the latest in commercial-quality equipment. The original support pillars, which were insulated and covered during the 1980 renovation to meet fire codes, have been revealed again, now meeting fire regulations through a thinner insulating method.

All these changes to Memorial Hall, nearly a century after community members first dreamed of building a living memorial to the area’s First World War veterans

would have made the original planners proud. Back then there was no place in Blyth to hold large events, the best options being halls above stores such as Industrial Hall (above The Citizen’s office today).

There had been discussion as early as 1910 about the need for a community hall but it gained momentum after the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918 finally ended the bloody World War I. While other communities planned to build statues to honour local soldiers who had lost their lives, groups such as the Blyth Women’s Institute rallied the community to build a hall.

Momentum grew as the village and surrounding areas of East Wawanosh, Hullett and Morris Townships were canvassed for donations. The WI purchased the Queen St. property on which the hall could be built.

On June 6, 1919, $2,000 was raised for the project by, among other events, offering rides on two new-fangled airplanes. That brought the total raised to $8,000.

On July 28, 1920 the cornerstone for Blyth Community Memorial Hall, a $20,000 building, was laid.

The architect was W. Murray of London. The builders were a local team, Cockerline and Floody. The building would house a theatre/concert hall upstairs holding more than 500 people, a meeting space downstairs and the village fire hall at the back on the southern side.

On Sunday, June 5, 1921 an opening ceremony and dedication of a memorial plaque was held. A reported crowd of 1,500 attended, filling the theatre, the basement and Continued on page 3

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BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 3.

Hall remains living memorial as dreamed

An estimated 1,500 people attended the hall’s opening on June 5, 1921, overflowing the building. from Listowel, met one of the Blyth Continued from page 2 volunteers who tried to interest him the lawns around the building. in making Memorial Hall a summer Over the coming years the base for his theatre. building would become the heart of But by now the eager volunteers the community with visits from the had begun to discover Memorial Chautauqua circuit and locally- Hall’s age and how much things like organized events like cantatas and fire regulations had changed. minstrel shows. The downstairs was Hearing of the work renewing the kept busy with meetings of hall, the village’s fire chief realized community groups and dances. the building required another fire By 1946, there wasn’t enough escape to meet code – though he room in the building’s fire hall for allowed the pageant to go ahead. the modernized fire department so it The volunteers had no money for moved to a new location. That year a fire escape so they turned to village village council called tenders for a council for help. Next came new addition of 16 by 20 feet on the concerns about the building’s south side of the building to house archaic electrical service. Despite its the village library. A kitchen and age, this passed muster but then one washrooms were built in the old councillor worried about a sag in the firehall. roof he’d noticed. An engineer’s As times changed, the downstairs report confirmed that there was a hall continued to be busy with fault in the roof structure. meetings and dances but as people The escalating price tag to repair turned to television for the problem left councilors in a entertainment, the glory of the quandary about whether to proceed. building, the upstairs theatre, got But public support, including from less and less use. It still hosted the groups such as the Legion and the village’s Remembrance Day senior citizens club, convinced ceremony but by the 1970s, little council to spend the money. By the else. fall of 1974 work was ready to In the summer of 1972 two events begin, removing the entire roof coincided that would radically alter structure and replacing it with a new Memorial Hall’s future. First, the design that reduced outward Blyth Agricultural Society asked the pressure on the walls that had caused Blyth Board of Trade (BBT) to host the original problem. the first-ever Queen of the Fair By then, however, Theatre Passe pageant and Helen Gowing, the BBT Muraille had found a new summer president, felt Memorial Hall was home at Victoria Playhouse in the place to do it. Her call for helpers Petrolia. But as the repairs went on to clean and redecorate the theatre over the winter of 1974-1975, a was answered by a group of young director, recently graduated volunteers who swarmed over the from York University’s theatre hall dusting, washing and repainting. program, did some work for Theatre That same summer, a small troupe of then-unknown actors from Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille gathered west of Clinton to visit neighbouring farmers and collect stories for what would become The Farm Show, one of the most formative productions in the history of Canadian theatre. The troupe’s leader, Paul Thompson, originally

Passe Muraille. When James Roy revealed to Paul Thompson that he wanted to start his own summer theatre, Thompson told him about Blyth – which just happened to be Roy’s home community before his family had moved away when he was still young. Roy made contact with Blyth volunteers, the first Blyth Festival production opened on the Memorial Hall stage and a new era began for the building.

That winter a group hired through a government winter works grant made more cosmetic improvements: painting seats and walls and stripping and refinishing the woodwork. In 1979, audiences gained relief from the summer heat in the packed theatre when the Festival installed air conditioning.

The theatre’s rapid growth led to an addition on the north side of the building in 1979-1980 that finally gave the actors proper dressing rooms and the technicians backstage storage for sets and provided the Festival administration with an office on ground floor (which would become the village’s library in the 1990s and the kitchen in the new renovation).

A decade later the Festival’s continued growth led it to add the “link” on the south side of the building between the original Memorial Hall and the Festival’s own administration building/rehearsal hall.

That addition included more washrooms, more lobby space, a box office and The Bainton Gallery, home for the

Festival’s art gallery.

All the improvements turned Memorial Hall into the region’s premier art centre, home not just to Blyth Festival and local production, but touring theatre and musical acts as diverse as classical guitarist Liona Boyd, opera singer Maureen Forrester, pop groups like Blue Rodeo, comedian Red Green and the Wingfield series of comic plays.

Since the theatre was put back into service with the 1974 renovation, more than a million people have attended events in the hall. Certainly those who dreamed of Blyth Community Memorial Hall and worked so hard to get it built would be proud to see their efforts have truly created a living memorial.

Happy 140th Anniversary from the Blyth BIA 140 Years of Heart and History

Blyth 140th Anniversary Salute is published by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. P.O. Box 429, Blyth, ON N0M 1H0 Tel.: 519-523-4792 Fax: 519-523-9140 Email: info@northhuron.on.ca Sales: Brenda Nyveld Heather Fraser

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Photo credit: The Citizen - Denny Scott

PAGE 4, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

Community centre rallied support 4 times From building the original arena in 1951, to 2 rebuilds and installing artificial ice, Blyth area has met the challenges

By Keith Roulston The Citizen Nothing puts the centre in an Ontario community like its hockey arena, and the Blyth community has rallied around its arena several times in the past 70 years – though the cost of that loyalty keeps rising.

It wasn’t until 1951 that Blyth got its first indoor arena. Earlier there had been several outdoor rinks, usually privately owned. At one point there was one across from the former Blyth Public School. In another case a man named Charlie Burling built one that was good enough that he could charge for its use on Saturday nights.

But by 1950 Blyth and area residents decided they wanted a proper indoor arena as other communities already had. (Belgrave had opened its arena in 1949!) The cost of the new building was $27,000, and amazingly it was $2,000 under budget.

The arena saw its first action in December 1950, but the official opening was Jan. 16, 1951, drawing a crowd of 800 to hear local dignitaries speak.

The arena surface was 70 feet by 170 feet, natural ice at that time, with two dressing rooms and a lobby area at the Gypsy Lane end of the building. There was limited room for spectators and no auditorium.

Even in those days before climate change, making and keeping good ice was difficult in the 1950s and 1960s, leading to short hockey seasons and some wet hockey games along the way. In 1967, Canada’s Centennial year, Blyth Lions Club decided to tackle the problem and raise money to install an artificial ice plant. Grants and the generosity of residents of Blyth and the surrounding townships raised the $35,000 required for the artifical ice plant, excavation of the floor and installation of cooling pipes and, finally, resurfacing with concrete.

By November the first sheet of artificial ice was installed. The official opening took place in December when the Lions Club turned over the key to the plant to Dr. R. W. Street, who was chairman of the recreation committee.

The ice plant was declared officially open by Blyth Reeve Borden Cook who gave credit to the Lions Club, the Blyth branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, the Blyth Agricultural Society and the townships of East Wawanosh, Hullett and Morris which had supplied centennial grant money to support the project.

The new arena got plenty of use with extended hockey seasons, the new sport of broomball, roller skating in summer, the Blyth Fall Fair and the annual Thresher Reunion. All that activity was threatened in 1976, however, when new building code changes brought inspections of the Blyth arena and those in every other town and village to see if they met new standards for snow loads. Like the arenas in most communities, Blyth’s arena failed the test.

The community came together, united in their determination to overcome the problem. Immediately after the order to halt operations in the old arena went into effect, a

meeting was held on June 23 in Blyth Memorial Hall. William Riehl was named fundraising chair and George Hubbard became chair of the building committee.

By July 10 volunteers had swarmed over the old arena, dismantling it. An auction of salvaged materials on July 24 raised nearly $10,000 toward the new building.

To save time and money it was decided to retain the old ice pad and build the new arena around it but there were other improvements. A second-floor auditorium fulfilling the community’s need for a large dance and banquet hall was built over the lobby and four dressing rooms. More room for spectators

Blyth and District Community Centre remains a busy heart of the community for winter sports, dances, and special events like the Barn Dance Campout, and this fall the Festival of Wizardry. true centre for the community, portion of the building while leaving completed. Once again the new hosting broomball, hockey, figure the auditorium intact except for arena, complete with improved skating, public skating, dances, relatively minor changes, and spectator seating, was ready for the weddings, banquets, the Thresher renovating the lobby area. A larger, 2002 hockey season. This time, Reunion and the Bluewater Kennel 80-foot by 190-foot ice surface was however, the cost was $2.5 million.

Blyth and District Community constructed and a 29-foot extension Club dog show. along the south side of the building Centre continues to be the heart of provided space for four new dressing the community’s winter sports and rooms, a referees room, the also provides facilities for the annual refrigeration plant and other Barn Dance Campout each spring, Thresher Reunion craft show in facilities.

Once again there was a large September and now the new Fesival amount of volunteer labour in taking of Wizardry. The nearby Blyth down the old arena structure once Campground makes it a convenient the 2001-2002 hockey season was venue for holding such large events.

Congratulations Blyth on your 140th Anniversary Clinton Chapel • Blyth Chapel • Bluewater Chapel Volunteer labour helped dismantle the old 1951 arena in 1976, making way for a new building in record time. was also built into the design.

Such was the community’s drive that the $471,000 building was officially declared open on Feb. 26, 1977. Local support had been so enthusiastic that the entire building was paid for, save for a promised provincial government grant through the Wintario lottery. For the opening, 350 guests sat down in the new auditorium along with Blyth Reeve Don Noble, the reeves of East Wawanosh, Hullett and Morris and county, provincial and federal authorities.

Once again the building was a

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BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 5.

Fire protection’s come a long way in Blyth Modern volunteers have equipment that would amaze firefighters of 1888

By Denny Scott The Citizen While the Blyth Fire Department has been amalgamated into the North Huron Fire Department (FDNH) and doesn’t technically exist anymore, there is a rich history of firefighting in Blyth stretching back nearly 130 years.

The Blyth Fire Brigade was established in 1888 and featured a horse-drawn, steam-powered Renald pumper and two hand-drawn hose reels which were purchased shortly after the brigade was formed for $2,150. The development marked the end of bucket brigades that had serviced the village since it was incorporated in 1877.

The brigade included Chief John Emigh, Captain Joseph Carter, First Lieutenant Sam Gidley, Second Lieutenant Robert Jones, First Engineer John B. Kelly, Second Engineer John Barricks and fireman Robert Maxwell.

The original ladders used by the brigade are owned by the FDNH, but not in use.

The first fire hall in the village was located at the corner of King and Queen Streets at the Queen’s Hotel stable, the current location for the Blyth Corner Café.

A permanent fire hall was built north of the Methodist Church (now the Blyth Christian Reformed Church) in 1889.

Also that year, it was discovered by the Fire Insurance Underwriters

Association that, from the ringing of the fire bell to firefighters arriving with the steam-powered pump, took eight minutes and 30 seconds which resulted in a 20 per cent reduction on fire insurance in the village.

The Blyth Volunteer Fire Department was created in 1901 and, five years later, municipal water lines for fire protection were installed in the village. Six years after that, in 1912, water mains and fire hydrants were installed in the village.

Many fires were fought using the municipal water system instead of the horse-drawn steam-powered boiler.

A small reminder of the first permanent fire hall still exists as the bell was moved to Blyth Memorial Community Hall when it was constructed in 1921. The handdrawn horse reels were moved to the rear of the Blyth Memorial Hall in 1921, shortly after it was constructed.

A concrete-block structure at the corner of Dinsley Street and Mill Street, just west of the Blyth United Church, housed the fire hall after it was built in 1941. The structure, which included a two-bay garage and doubled as a scale house for the town weigh scale, is still in use by North Huron Township as a Public Works Shed.

To go along with the new structure, the department purchased its first motorized pumper vehicle in 1941, a 1923 Reo Speedwagon

In 1889 the fire station for the Blyth Fire Brigade was on Queen St. on land that’s now the parking lot for the Blyth Christan Reformed Church.

Truck, for $2,700. The truck is still and parts of Hullett, East Wawanosh, purchased in 1984.

The Blyth firefighters, responding owned by the FDNH and is on West Wawanosh, McKillop, Morris to a need they saw in the community, display at the existing Blyth station and Colborne Townships.

After the fire area was created, a were the first fire department in the of the Fire Department of North Huron at the corner of County Roads motorized pumper, the area’s first county to complete the Ministry of 4 and 25. Restoring the truck was a new engine, was purchased. The Health Medical First Responder lifelong goal of the late Paul Josling, unit, a 1953 Bickel Seagrave on a program training and in 1998 the last fire chief of the Blyth Fire Fargo chassis, would be housed in an became the first fire department in Department. Josling’s son Jeff has addition to the fire hall at Dinsley the county to purchase and complete training to operate an automatic continued the drive to keep the piece and Mill Streets.

In 1972, a foam system was external defibrillator. of Blyth firefighting history alive.

Dave Mounsey, a member of the In 1953, Village of Blyth Reeve purchased and in 1980, the Bill Morritt, a former member of the department purchased an emergency fire department and police officer Blyth Fire Brigade, along with Blyth van and began to respond to auto and who was killed while answering a Volunteer Fire Department Chief farm accidents and medical police call, had tried to fundraise to purchase another defibrillator for the Herb Dexter and firefighters George emergencies.

In 1983, the concrete block department shortly before his death.

Bailie and Irvin Bowes, were the driving force behind establishing the portion of the fire hall was In his honour, the Dave Mounsey Blyth and District Fire Area to serve demolished and a two-bay addition Memorial Foundation was created to the Police Village of Manchester was added to the former additions in continue his work. The first of what (now Auburn), the village of Blyth anticipation of a new pumper to be Continued on page 6

Insurance was an Elliott Tradition!

In today's diverse and changing economic climate, it's getting harder and harder for business to operate in the black and continue to provide quality service and products to their clients.

In Blyth there was such a business that can boast of 103 continual years of success throughout five family generations and that name was Elliott Insurance. The Elliott family has played an integral part in the history of Blyth and area since 1910 when J.H.R. Elliott moved to Blyth from Thessalon, Ontario to purchase The Blyth Standard newspaper, a book and stationery store and two small insurance agencies.

Pictured in back; J. Rick Elliott and R. John Elliott. Seated: Gordon B. Elliott Who would think that from those tender beginnings in 1910 that it would be the start of a five-generation family business?

Wm. Alexander Elliott, J.H.R. Elliott's first son began working with his father prior to serving in the navy during WWII and then relocated to Thunder Bay area after the war.

In 1936 Gordon B. Elliott, J.H.R. Elliott's third son began working with his father at the age of 21 years in the insurance office until his retirement in 1980, after 44 years of service and commitment to the community. During that time, the insurance industry was far more basic in part from the needs of the customers, as there were few vehicles and buildings required only basic fire and wind coverage.

"I got into the insurance by accident. When I came out of Grade 13 in 1934 I worked at a garage. I started into the business when my father needed someone to help him. I came in because of necessity and I've never been sorry for it," said Gordon Elliott. "The education that was needed for the business was taught to me by my father, and R. John Elliott and J.H.R. Elliott a license was not required to sell insurance," said Gordon.

Gordon's son R. John Elliott, joined the firm part time in 1956 and became licensed in 1961 with the Ontario Insurance Agents Assoc. Gordon and John operated the business as a partnership known as Elliott Insurance Agency until 1978 when they incorporated the business into Elliott Insurance Brokers Limited.

"It was my desire to go into the insurance business when I was in Grade 9", explained John. "The opportunity of working with my father and carrying on the family business was a simple and meaningful decision that made sense!"

"Why are today's rates relatively low compared to 1948?" John says, "It's because of the better fire protection and the consumers increasing risk management of their property. The customers are continuing to upgrade their homes and businesses' electrical, heating, plumbing and roof systems. This reduces everyone's potential to loss of property, thereby reducing the overall costs paid in claims."

In 1980 John's eldest son J. Richard Elliott began working part time and in 1983 joined the firm completing the fourth generation to work within and manage the family's insurance business and service its growing clientele.

Rick finished his education at Mohawk College of Applied Arts and Technologies in Hamilton, Ontario in 1983, received his AIIC Associateship in the Insurance Institute of Canada in 1987 and became a full partner in the firm.

"With time, comes experience and being able to draw on the experiences of J.H.R., Gordon and John provide a tremendous resource of the industry-based J.H.R. Elliott knowledge and consumer relationships combined with the changes of both the business and community", explains Rick. "I never knew my great-grandfather, but what I do know is that he has left an indelible imprint in the community and with his children, to pass on into the future. Many times through discussions with both my grandfather and father, they spoke without hesitation, about the strength, compassion and dedication that J.H.R. had for his family and the community, which has been instilled in each of his family members generation after generation.

In 1988 we computerized our office processes, which actually was the most major change in the office since inception in 1910. The single phone Back row: Gertrude Elliott (Wettlaufer), Betty Elliott, line became Gordon Elliott, Frank Elliott, Marion and Alexander five lines, the binding cases Elliott. Front row: J.H.R. Elliott, his wife, Ada M. Elliott b e c a m e and Aunt Marion's mother. Standing in front of J.H.R. colour-coded Elliott is R. John Elliott. files and work was done on computers.

In 1996 we began providing computer support and service to Cardiff & Mulvey Insurance in Brussels, which is now called Sholdice Insurance Limited and in 1999 after a number of years of discussion, we made strategic alliances with four area brokers including Sholdice Insurance Limited, Lyons & Mulhern Insurance Brokers in Jeff Elliott Goderich, Seaforth Insurance Broker in Seaforth and Kleinknecht Insurance Brokers in Linwood to become Huron Insurance Managers Group.

Huron Insurance Managers Group was a joint venture organization of our five offices, which had a state of the art automation system, internal support and a wider rage of Insurance Company markets to offer superior products and better pricing to our clients.

Congratulations Blyth on your 140th Birthday and thank you to Blyth and area for your support, friendship and memories!

PAGE 6, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

ESTC created by firefighters Volunteer firefighters volunteered time to build first training facility

The Emergency Services Training Centre brings emergency personnel from across Ontario to upgrade their skills at Blyth facility. remained the same: making sure when, or where, they needed it.

By Denny Scott The seven-acre training facility lifesaving skills could be taught The Citizen was completed by the firefighters close to home.

The initiative started in 2002 when and has come to include training The Emergency Services Training Centre in Blyth has had some Blyth and District Fire Department facilities for farm machinery rescue, different looks over the years, firefighters found the training they marine fire and rescue, auto however the goal has always needed wasn’t always available extrication, silo and grain bin rescue,

Firefighters have new home Continued from page 5 now 78 defibrillators was placed at the Blyth Community Memorial Hall in Mounsey’s name.

In 2000, the department purchased a new pumper truck for $216,000.

In 2001, the Blyth department hosted the 100th annual Fire Fighters Association of Ontario (FFAO) convention. The convention would return in 2004, 2007 and 2010.

The firefighters fundraised the purchase of a thermal imaging camera, a process which was completed in 2002, the same year the department completed hazardous material awareness training.

In 2003, the department became an affiliate member of the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Public Fire Safety Council, completed the confinedspace rescue and awareness training and became a member of the Municipal Fire Service Instructor’s Association.

In 2010, the Fire Department of North Huron was formed, disbanding the local fire boards covering Blyth, Wingham, Belgrave and the surrounding communities.

Fire Chief John Black was hired as the first career fire chief to lead the two departments.

Also in 2010, the FDNH shut down the World War II-era fire siren that had been used to alert firefighters of a call, using more modern technology instead.

In 2011, the FDNH increased its staff to include a Fire Prevention officer and a chaplain to assist with stress management.

In 2012, Chief Black passed away of fire-service-related cancer.

In the following years, the FDNH would implement a comprehensive firefighter cancer prevention strategy.

Between 2013 and the present, the FDNH has put an emphasis on new training programs, including two kinds of special training for locating individuals inside burning buildings.

It has also launched a lightweight construction identification program designed to alert firefighters to potential hazards related to floors giving way or fire spreading.

The construction of a new training centre south of Blyth, the Emergency Services Training Centre, in 2002, was the work of the department. The centre opened in 2003.

In 2010, the training centre underwent significant upgrades,

including a new structure which, after completion, it began sharing with the Fire Department of North Huron in 2011.

The department now operates from two stations, the previously mentioned Blyth hall and the Wingham hall at 369 Josephine Street in the town.

The department includes a fulltime chief, a part-time fire prevention officer and numerous firefighters.

Over the years, firefighters have been notified of the need of their service through several different ways. Originally, the fire bell was used to warn of fire. After the Second World War, an air-raid siren from London, England was utilized.

In the 1960s, phones were installed in firefighters homes and at Howson and Howson Mills which could be used to communicate.

In 1972, two-way radios were used for improved communication and, in 1978, the department switched to pagers to alert firefighters.

In the mid-1990s, a central dispatch system for county fire departments was established at the Seaforth hospital and in September of 2000, a central dispatch call system was

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More recently, the department has utilized radios and mobile phone applications to notify of fire calls.

The FDNH also utilizes Twitter to inform the public of fire calls to make sure people are aware of when fire trucks may be on the road.

Fire chiefs for the various fire services over the years include; John Emigh, 1988-1901; George White, 1901-1908; Samuel Westlake, 19081910; Richard Sommers, 19101921; George White, 1921-1931; Alfonzo Smith, 1932-1945; Art Barr, 1945-1946; Herb Dexter, 1946-1955; Bob Chalmers 1955; Jack Hesselwood, 1955-1958; Irvin Bowes 1958-1988; Paul Josling, 1988-2010; John Black, 2010-2012 and David Sparling, 2013-2017.

Ryan Ladner is the present chief of the department.

confined space rescue and propane emergencies.

Construction began on the site in 2003 and started with facilities to help training with farm machinery rescue and propane emergencies, two key areas of focus for the department given the rural nature of the area it covered and the proximity to Sparling Propane.

According to David Sparling, former Chief of the Fire Department of North Huron, the organization that replaced the Blyth and District Fire Department, the firefighters found support throughout the community, especially when local businesses and ratepayers found out the firefighters needed training to keep up-to-date on the most recent firefighting techniques.

As a result of the numerous offers of support, the ESTC continued to expand its site, its training programs and its equipment.

In total, the land, much of the machinery and building supplies and $200,000 in cash were donated by local businesses and the 22 firefighters, each putting in more than 120 hours over the year they took to erect the facility.

The facility was scheduled to take three years to build, but, with the community support the firefighters had pushing them forward, it was finished two years early and was officially opened by the Ontario Fire Marshal on July 30, 2004.

While the official opening was

July 30, local firefighters had been training before then, using shipping containers that would make a large part of the original facility. The ESTC has continued to grow since then, offering more courses and training. In 2009, the firefighters once again sought to increase the facility and found support from the federal government as well as North Huron Township.

Huron-Bruce M.P. Ben Lobb announced $750,000 in funding for the construction of what is now the largest part of the ESTC, the technology building which includes storage for gear, showers and classrooms as well as equipment bays for large-scale fire equipment.

Construction took place between 2010 and 2011 after a groundbreaking ceremony in July 2010.

The ESTC now is home to the Fire Department of North Huron’s Blyth fire hall and has served as a base for Huron County Emergency Medical Services and the office of the fire prevention officer that, until recently, was shared between North Huron and neighbours MorrisTurnberry and Ashfield-ColborneWawanosh.

Recently-named FDNH Chief Ryan Ladner has ambitious goals for the centre, and, with North Huron’s support, has begun the search for a full-time, dedicated employee whose primary job will be to explore new training opportunities, seek out new partnerships and grow the facility.

Congratulations East Wawanosh Congratulations Blyth onyour your 140th 150th Anniversary on Anniversary

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BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 7.

School’s out Blyth Public School is no more, but a new educational facility will rise on the old school’s site

By Keith Roulston The Citizen For the first time since 1867 there is no school in Blyth, but a new educational facility with a completely different focus may soon rise on the site of Blyth’s last elementary school.

The former Blyth Public School on King Street was demolished in March of this year, nearly five years after classes ended in June 2012. If all goes as planned the old school yard will soon become the location of the Grant and Mildred Sparling Centre, home of the Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity (CCRC), a ground-breaking national hub of rural culture and economic innovation.

By the time the old school came down many people in the community had grown resigned to the fact no elementary students would ever attend classes there again. Still, there were many fond memories for those who had attended the school since it opened in 1966.

The school was a victim of changing demographics and provincial funding decisions. It closed after an accommodation review by the Avon Maitland District School Board, which has jurisdiction over schools in Huron and Perth Counties, that also involved Brussels Public School, East Wawanosh Public School at Belgrave, Wingham

Public School, Grey Central Public School at Ethel and Turnberry Central Public School near Wingham. With the closure, Blyth students had a choice of either attending Hullett Central Public School just down the road in Londesborough or the newly built Maitland River Elementary School, next door to F. E. Madill Secondary School in Wingham. For those who chose to go north, Grade 7 and 8 students would attend a new elementary wing at F. E. Madill.

In a way, sending students outside of Blyth for their schooling returns the village to its origins. The first village children attended schools in the townships of East Wawanosh and Morris. The first truly Blyth school came after Dr. Alex Thomson and others in 1867 petitioned East Wawanosh Council for a union school. According to the 1977 history, Blyth: A Village Portrait the new school was a singlestorey structure 30 feet by 40 feet on Dinsley St. West that held 100 students.

Later, a new frame school was built on the east side of Queen St. on the hill at the north end of town.

According to The Huron Expositor, this building was replaced by a $2,200 three-room brick building on the same site. This building still stands today, converted to an apartment building. With the addition of a third classroom a Mrs. Lovatt was added to the staff which

The first school on the current site was built in 1895. also included James Scott and Joshua Tenant. Mrs. Lovatt was paid $250 a year for her work.

By 1895 that school had become too small and a new school was built on the site that would remain a school yard until the 2012 closure.

This location, bounded by King, Mill, Wellington and Morris Sts. had been the village’s first fairgrounds.

At this point students who wanted to proceed beyond Grade 8 had to leave the village but in 1910 a continuation (secondary) school was added. By the 1920s more space was needed and in 1923 a new two-storey addition was built with the second floor dedicated to the continuation school. This building included a room specifically designed for teaching science.

In 1946 the local school board decided to close the continuation school and bus secondary school students to Clinton for their education. In 1958 one of the downstairs classrooms was remodeled for the village’s first kindergarten.

By 1965, however, the school

board felt the old school was beyond repair and decided to build a new, single-storey building, complete with a gymnasium/auditorium. After some debate over where the new school should be located it was decided to build on the King St. side of the school grounds, behind the old building. The new school opened in 1966.

In the 1980s an addition with more classrooms was made to the west end of the building. Despite the

fact families were having fewer children, Blyth Public School remained near capacity until the accommodation review led to its closure.

The proposed Grant and Mildred Sparling Centre will showcase forward-thinking design that will focus on maximizing energy and water efficiency while offering bright, airy spaces that welcome users and visitors alike. Among its specialized facilities it will include a dye house, sewing room and a spinning/weaving/fibre lab for the CCRC’s Fashion Arts and Creative Textiles Studio. This studio has already held several courses before the building was even built.

To spur innovative economic development, the CCRC held a Rural Talks to Rural conference in the fall of 2016 which welcomed 139 delegates from across Canada to take part in 15 panel discussions on how to tackle issues facing rural communities. A similar conference is planned for 2018.

CCRC also plans to host residencies for people working in theatre, music, dance, opera and visual and literary arts. (For more information visit the CCRC website at www.ruralcreativity.org.)

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Blyth Public School, which closed in 2012, was demolished early in 2017. The site will become home to the Grant and Mildred Sparling Centre and the Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity.

Celebrate The History of Blyth and surrounding area at

The Repository of Blyth History Brock & Janis (Morritt) Vodden 412 Queen St., Blyth 519-523-9393 jvodden@ezlink.on.ca Open by chance or appointment

PAGE 8, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

Long history Blyth United’s roots go back to Methodist, Presbyterian churches

By Eva Sippel For The Citizen Blyth United Church’s roots date back to two churches that served Blyth in the mid-1800s that eventually came together through church union of the Methodist and Presbyterian churches in 1925.

The Presbyterian church first put down roots in Blyth. In 1858, after several years of itinerant preachers and services held in various homes and barns, the first church was build on Dinsley St. East in what is now the Horticultural Park.

The work to bring a congregation together had begun in 1854. Some well-known names including J.B. Taylor, Kenneth McBean, Thomas Richie, John Laidlaw and Walter McGowan were the board of management. A building committee was set up including Andrew and James Stewart, Malcolm Campbell, H. Richmond and McGowan.

Meanwhile, the first Methodist Church was formed in Blyth in 1860, becoming a member of the Morris District Mission the following year.

Reverend Peter Campbell was the first minister with Reverend Colman Bristol taking over in 1862 when the first church was built. A new structure was erected on Queen Street in 1889 that is now the Blyth Christian Reformed Church. The new church cost $5,350.00 and the official opening took place on November 7, 1889.

The current site of the United Church at the corner of Dinsley and Mill Sts. was the location of the second Presbyterian Church, built in 1877 at a cost of $4,340. It was renamed St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church.

In the early years there was a fee of $3 per pew per family, but that was later dropped, though pews continued to be allotted to families.

In 1909 a devastating fire destroyed the manse, stables and church sheds of the Presbyterian Church on Mill St.

but they were rebuilt.

Meanwhile, at the Methodist Church, progress was occurring. The Epworth League presented a piano to the church in 1905 and an organ was purchased in 1909 at the cost of $300. In 1910 permission was granted for the choir members not to have to wear their hats during the service. A water closet was installed in a corner of the shed in 1911 and a telephone for the parsonage was noted the following year. As the Queen Street Church did not have a bell, congregants were called to The current home of Blyth United Church was built in 1962. worship by the ringing of the village The Queen Street location was demonstrations, a tooney sale, local for two years now. bell.

July 2017 saw accessibility sold to the Continuing Presbyterian entertainment, an art gallery, fashion The United Church of Canada congregation in 1936 then the show plus two seatings for lunch. renovations, plus the installation of was created in 1925 through union Christian Reformed Church bought For the past two years the new flooring in the sanctuary and of the Methodist and Presbyterian it in 1969.

United Church has hosted a lobby. churches, resulting in two United In August, a new pastor, the A new church was built at the “Drive Through” luncheon every Churches in the village. In 1925 Dinsley and Mill Street location in spring and fall. They have also Reverend Hillary MacDonald will services were held for six months at 1962 at a cost of $95,000 after the catered the Thresher Reunion succeed Gary Clark who served the Queen Street location and then old structure was demolished. On weekend on Friday and Saturday from 2008 to 2017. for six months at the Dinsley Street the day of dedication, October 28, church. there was three inches of snow on The movement for church union the ground. was far from unanimous. Notes from On November 12, 2003 the a 1932 meeting held at St. Andrew’s United Church hosted 175 quilts. stated “because of adverse feeling The current church was towards union by originally the site of St. the Queen St. Andrew’s Presbyterian congregation”, St. Andrew’s moved Church. that negotiations be dropped.

But it was the time of the Great Depression and times were tough.

519-654-6791 In 1933, because of difficult times, all paid officials had to take a 15 per cent cut in The oldest was made in 1890 by salaries until conditions improved.

Lavern Clark’s grandmother, Mabel Finally in 1934 the two churches Gladstone. united to form the Blyth United In 2004 the church celebrated its Church. The congregation decided to 150th Anniversary. All living use the former St. Andrew’s building ministers returned for the special as the permanent church because anniversary service. That year also there was more land and more saw the installation of a chair lift. parking, and the manse and the shed From 1994 until 2014 church were close by. The only members hosted “Women’s Day disadvantage was that the church Out” on a Saturday every April. The building was not in good condition. day would be filled with Blyth Road, Blyth ~ 519-523-9990

Happy Anniversary Blyth

& Detailing

Congratulations Blyth on your 140th Celebrations

Blyth’s newest church very busy Living Waters Christian Fellowship active in community Living Water Christian Fellowship (LWCF) commenced worship gatherings in September 2001 in conjunction with the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada, which has over 150 congregations across the country.

From its inception, LWCF’s vision has been “Making Disciples for Jesus – in our Homes, Community and World”. From 2001-2012, the congregation met at Blyth Public School, then rented space from the former Blyth Community Church of God at 308 Blyth Road. As of 2017 the congregation is once again relocating as the building it has been using has been sold. In 2005 the church bought a 4-acre potential future building site on the north edge of Blyth.

LWCF offers weekly worship service and Sunday School for a range of ages, as well as nursery for babies and toddlers. There are engaging midweek adult small groups. In the past, the church’s

community involvement has taken various additional forms. Several of its congregation were instrumental in development of the local Youth Park (skateboard park). The church offered a midweek Youth Group program for many years, and sponsored youth participation in summer SERVE mission trips and Mission To Haiti building projects.

Also, for a dozen years, LWCF’s Women’s Ministry co-operated with the EMC churches in Auburn and Clinton to host “Faith In Song”, a concert which brought a variety of musical artists with a basis in Christian faith to perform in the community, with proceed going to support worthy local charitable causes.

Each year the church has participated in community ecumenical projects including Vacation Bible School, Advent/ Christmas Service, and Walk Through Holy Week.

Some current initiatives include a half-dozen Food Boxes with healthy

fresh ingredients distributed monthly within the community to those who may most appreciate it, and a Blyth-to-Wingham Foodbank Shuttle offered once a month in cooperation with the Blyth Christian Reformed Church, Wingham Salvation Army Family and Community Services and the North Huron Community Food Share.

Each year LWCF hosts a free Good Friday Community Breakfast, and assist with the Community Christmas Dinner at the Columbus Centre in Wingham. The Women’s Ministry prepares care packages for students, and supports international initiatives including Samaritan’s Purse, Sole Hope, and the Lulu Tree.

The church has offered familyfriendly movie nights with a wholesome spiritual slant. The congregation also has a Benevolent Fund to assist those going through hard times, such as house fires and accident victimsin a demonstration of their church’s deep desire to touch their community genuinely with the love of Jesus.

Owner/Operator Bill & Jenny McGrath

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BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 9.

Blyth Christian Reformed Church now 55 Church founded by Dutch immigrants in 1962 is still going strong

the congregation boasted 59 families from the original 32, and hosted its first Calvinette (now GEMS) Stamppot supper – which is a continuing tradition today. In 1984 the side entrance door was added, and in 1985 the house on the North side of the church was purchased and torn down to extend the parking lot. This increased in size again in 1989 when the congregation purchased the adjoining lot for parking and added a second storey on the back to accommodate the burgeoning congregation of 92 families. In 2002, the bus parking garage on the north side was purchased as well and torn down for more parking.

Currently the Blyth Christian Reformed Church includes a wheelchair accessible elevator (added in 1990) and three renovated bathrooms, and two separate accessible bathrooms, renovated in

2012. As well, a Pastor’s office was added in 2008 and the basement hall was reconfigured to include an accessible side door, and a more functional kitchen and updated fellowship space in 2015.

The congregation is currently enjoying its 55th year as Blyth Christian Reformed Church in 2017, with Pastor G. VanLeeuwen serving as minister (2013 – present). And

while its inaugural cadets and calvinette clubs began back in 1967, the Blyth Christian Reformed Church continues to offer its GEMS and cadets programs, as well as Community Vacation Bible School, Coffee Break, Youth Group and various other programs, as well as two Sunday services at 10 am and 7:30 pm from its location on Queen Street.

The building was originally the Blyth Methodist church.

Blyth Christian Reformed Church marks its 55th anniversary in 2017, in the former Methodist church building.

World War formed Blyth’s first

By Kirsten Passchier Christian Reformed Church For The Citizen congregation in 1962. The original The town of Blyth hosts many church congregation was made up of unique landscapes familiar to its 32 families who rented space from residents as you pass through town. the Continuing Presbyterian Church The tall steeple atop the Blyth (original Methodist Church) for an Christian Reformed Church is one annual rental fee of $950.00. such landmark, which has been a Reverend R. Sikkema was the part of Blyth for as long as anyone minister at this time from 19631966. The building was then can remember.

Situated on Main Street, what is purchased by the congregation for now the Blyth Christian Reformed approximately $15,000.00 in 1969.

Church, was originally constructed From 1967-1973 Reverend H. Kroez in 1889, built at a cost of $5,350 for pastored the congregation. the Methodist Church formed in Past ministers have included: Rev. T. Blyth in 1860. Hart Massey, later Hoogsteen (1973-1979), Rev. A. grandfather of Vincent Massey, Dieleman (1979-1983), Rev. R. Canada’s first native Governor Gelwicks (1984-1987), Rev. W. General, came to Blyth to lay the Lammers (1989-1992), Rev. A. cornerstone for the new building. VanGeest (1994-2001), and Pastor J. The church boasted two Kuperus (2003-2010).

While many changes have taken cornerstones, into the first, laid by Hart Massey, four newspapers, place since its purchase in 1969, the church documents and coin of the Blyth Christian Reformed Church realm were placed. The second was still contains a majority of the laid by Mrs. A Coulter and Mrs. N. original benches. In addition, the Young on behalf of the women of the congregation continued to use the original pump organ until 1971, congregation.

The official opening of the when their first electric organ was church took place on November 7, purchased. However, the pipes from 1889. It then became the Queen the original pump organ are still in Street United Church in 1925. place at the front of the sanctuary.

In 1971 an addition of four rooms However, after amalgamating with St. Andrews United Church and two bathrooms was added to the (formerly St. Andrews Presbyterian), church, and in 1972 the first kitchen to form Blyth United Church in 1934 was constructed in the building. the church building was sold to the However, as some members recall, Continuing Presbyterian Church the congregation was still required to bring their own coffee mugs. congregation in 1936.

Ten years after purchasing the In 1962 immigrants who had arrived to Canada after the Second Blyth Christian Reformed Church

Congratulations Blyth on your 140th Anniversary! from the

The original organ is still in the church.

Blyth Lions Club

430 Queen Street - currently Queens Bakery & Accommodations 1881 - 430 Queen Street was built in 1881 and is situated in the Milne Block.

James McMurchie operated a private bank in the North section of the building immediately to the North of 430 Queen Street and then later went into the flax business. McMurchie’s name appears on many land transactions as he was a conveyancer involved in many real estate deals. It is likely that Dr. W.J. Milne owned most or all of the Milne Block at this time including 430 Queen Street location.

1902 - Sam Herrington operated a dry goods store - clothing & fabrics (S. Herrington, Blyth) 1906 - 1938 Ezra Bender (married Emma Wagner in 1908) operated a dry goods store - clothing, fabrics, groceries. Pay cash for farm produce. (E. Bender, Blyth) 1931 building completely gutted due to fire. Damage to neighbouring buildings was minimal due to firewalls on each side, therefore the decision to rebuild the two storey building was made. Jim Cutt may have operated a dry goods store here. But speculation suggests that Mr. Cutt may have operated in a different location located in the block to the south.

1938 - Wilmot F. Webster, an undertaker, had a furniture store & funeral parlour. (Wilmot F. Webster Furniture & Funeral Service) 1939 - 1946 Harold & Myrtle Vodden rented the building from Mary Milne and operated a bake shop later locating in the building next door to the North (Sharon Davis building). The Vodden family lived above the store. (Vodden’s Bakery) 1948 - Kay & William J. Heffron operated a dry goods store, Ladies & Men’s wear. The Heffron family lived above the store. (W. J. Heffron) 1949 - 1950 Building vacant 1950 - 1969 Moses Wineberg (who also had a store in Brussels at the time) operated a yard goods, men’s & ladies and children’s wear, boots & shoes, called The Arcade Store. His sales clerk was Mrs. Etta Laidlaw and she and her husband occupied the apartment above. Mr. Wineberg closed the store and it remained vacant for a few years 1973 - 1980 Larry & Barbara (Holland) Walsh & Mary Holland purchase; complete renovation to store and apartment. Walsh’s opened a fabric shop - B J Fabrics in March 1974.

1980 - ? Floyd & Liz Herman open the Blyth Saga gift store in July and live in the apartment upstairs. ? - ? Lois Van Vliet owns & operates the Blyth Saga 1992 - 2006 Dan & Donna Taylor own & operate The Blyth Apothecary drug store.

2006 - 2012 Tim Saunders owns & operates The Three Squirrels Antique shop 2012 - present March 2012, 430 Queen Street Corporation purchases building. Total renovation to store & accommodations above. Open the Queens Bakery September 7, 2012 and open the accommodations which includes five separate bedrooms, 2 shared washrooms, shared kitchen and shared living room for patrons to rent on a night by night basis.

In 1990 an addition was built on the rear of the church.

PAGE 10, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017 Beginnings, formed in 2008 in the northern part of Huron County which originally included St. John’s Evangelist Church (Brussels), St. Paul’s Trinity (Wingham) and St. Peter’s (Lucknow) – which has since closed.

Trinity Anglican has tenured 33 rectors since its inaugural service back in December of 1878. Rev. W. Henderson 1878, Rev. G.F. Parke 1883, Rev. H.A Thomas/Rev. G.W Racey 1889, Rev. T.L Higley 1892, Rev. C.L. Mills 1898, Rev. G. McGuillen 1900, Rev. G. Edmonds 1902, Rev. W. Hartley 1905, Rev. J. Farr 1910, Rev. W.B. Hawkins 1916, Rev. Share 1928, Rev. L.V. Popcock 1930, Rev. A.H. Mahoney 1936, Rev. R.M. Weekes 1937, Rev. P.H. Streeter 1942, Rev. J.L. Henderson 1945, Rev. G.M. Wyatt 1949, Rev. J.A. Roberst 1950, Rev. W.E. Bramhill 1952, Rev. B. deVries 1955, Rev. R.F. Carson 1973, Rev.

D. Sargent 1977, Rev. R. Lyons 1981, Rev. P. Nunn 1986, Rev. D. Fuller 1989, Rev. P. Acton 1991, Rev. N. Beale 1995, Rev. T. Wilson 2001, Rev. P. Chuipka 2008, and current interim pastor Rev. A. Livingstone 2015.

A long-standing part of the village of Blyth, Trinity Anglican continues to be a vibrant part of the community, offering weekly Sunday services at 9:15 a.m., as well as a dedicated altar guild. A women’s group was active for many years, but recently disbanded at the end of 2016.

The church’s modern airconditioned hall is used by different community groups for a wide variety of functions and the Anglican Church congregation continues to provide catering each summer in conjunction with the Blyth Festival, and hosts a booth at the annual Thresher Reunion.

Best Wishes Blyth on your 140th COVERING ALL YOUR CARPENTRY NEEDS

Trinity Anglican Church was built in 1978 but recent changes add to the building’s usefulnesss.

Anglican church dates to 1860 Blyth’s Anglicans met in various halls before building current church

By Kirsten Passchier For The Citizen Built in 1878 the Trinity Anglican Church of Blyth has been faithfully serving the community for 139 years. Originally, the first Anglican services took place in the log hotel in 1860 when the missionary Mr. Carmichael would walk from Clinton to facilitate the services.

From there, services were held in Nethery’s Orange Hall, with Rev. Murphy presiding.

Later, in 1878, Rev. W. Henderson was appointed and services were located in the old schoolhouse north of Blyth, and then at Temperance Hall. During his tenure, in February of 1878 the congregation decided to build a permanent building, and

Trinity Anglican Church originally had a steeple.

beganconstruction on the church that is still used today.

James Young was hired to frame the church, and the cornerstone was laid on July 1, 1878. There were some setbacks later in the summer, after a severe thunderstorm blew off the roof, and crashed the end wall.

However, the church was still completed less than 11 months after the decision to build was made, for a total cost of $3,200. The inaugural service was held in the church on Dec. 29, 1878.

Since then, numerous changes and improvements have taken place over the years. Early in the 20th century the spires were removed due to safety concerns. An organ was acquired in 1903 and the church was later wired for electricity in 1924. In the late 1960s two Sunday school rooms were constructed, and the wood furnace replaced with propane in 1964.

When the Anglican Church closed in Bervie, Ontario three stained glass windows were moved to St. Mark’s in Auburn, and three to Trinity Anglican. With the closing of St. Mark’s in the 1980s, the three windows were moved to, and installed at Trinity Anglican church of Blyth. Two of the stained glass windows depict St. Peter and St. Paul. Ironically however, the workmen made an error during installation, and the names for the depictions were reversed.

In 1994, Trinity Anglican underwent a major change, and added an addition of the Parish Hall that included a meeting hall, kitchen, and accessible washrooms. In 1995 a new steel roof was added, and the outside brick was given a facelift with new paint in 1997.

In 2003 the church celebrated its 125th anniversary. In addition, new carpeting was added, which also included the installation of a new subfloor and strengthening some existing floor joists. In 2010 stained glass window inserts were donated in memory of former congregation members, and in 2014 Trinity Anglican implemented its “Renew Project” to facilitate a number of planned capital improvements.

These included an energy-efficient furnace, insulating the basement, new signage, and painting the exterior doors. Most recently in early 2017, new baffles were installed in the Parish Hall to diminish the echo.

For a number of years Trinity Anglican also owned and maintained a rectory on the corner of Dinsley and Gypsy Lane, which was later torn down and a new home built in 1911. The new rectory was eventually sold to a family in the congregation in the early 1990s.

While there have been a number of parish changes since the church opened its doors, it became part of the Four Point Rural Parish of New

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BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 11.

Still roaring!

Blyth Lions Club has been a leader in the community for more than 70 years, bringing many improvements

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen The Blyth Lions Club has been a formative organization in the village of Blyth, funding worthwhile projects, supporting children’s programs and helping residents in need for the nearly three-quarters of a century.

The Blyth Lions Club received its charter from Lions Club International on March 27, 1945.

Sponsored by the Mitchell Lions Club, The Blyth club elected Dr. Don Hodd as the club’s charter president.

Three charter members remained with club for decades after that first night. Frank Bainton remained a member for nearly 50 years until 1992. George Radford was a member from 1945 until 1981 and Norman Garrett was a member until 1972.

The first project undertaken by the club was to produce a Minstrel Show, which was performed by members of the club.

The show proved to be popular, playing to capacity crowds not only in Blyth, but in surrounding communities as well.

The club’s first major purchase was the land that would become known as Blyth Lions Park, near the village’s baseball diamonds and community centre. The club still owns and maintains it today.

The park was purchased by the club from charter member Harve McCallum for a total of $500.

Another early Lions Club project was the establishment of the Blyth Boys and Girls Band, which was sponsored by the club. The band boasted over 50 members during those early years.

The Lions were instrumental in improvements to the Blyth Arena in the early 1960s. A Blyth group had initiated a campaign that raised money for an artificial ice plant and floor for the Blyth Arena. The campaign halted just two years later, but the Lions Club took it over.

The arena project was completed quickly for a final cost of $25,000.

The club had raised the entirety of

the funds and it was paid back over a three-years period.

Under 10 years later, in 1976, the Lions Club pledged $12,000 towards the construction of a new arena for the village.

The Lions Club also worked to improve Blyth’s ball diamond, purchasing new floodlights on the park’s wooden stands.

In 1972, the Lions purchased and installed new steel towers at the park, along with a new screen fence for a backstop. In addition, the club also dug up the infield to install a new drainage system and refinish the field.

In 1973, the Blyth Lions sponsored a Leo Club for the village youth. Lions Harold Cook, Gord Jenkins and Charlie Shaw, who is still with the club, all served as Leo Advisors.

The next year, the club helped create the Lions Youth Exchange Program and Shaw was the first District A9 Youth Exchange Chairman.

The first young people to take advantage of the program came from Texas. Fifteen local students travelled to Texas and in exchange 15 Texans came to Blyth for a fiveweek stay with local families.

The club hosted a steak barbecue for the Texan exchange participants that first year and has since maintained the tradition of holding a special evening meal to celebrate the program and its participants.

In the second year, interest grew tremendously with over 50 participants. Blyth young people travelled to the U.S. and Europe, while Blyth hosted participants from the U.S., Europe, Japan and Africa.

The Youth Camp now associated with the club was officially named “The Lion Charlie Shaw International Youth Camp� just a few years ago.

Since the inception of the program, dozens of young people from the Blyth area, sponsored by the club, have travelled to countries such as Australia, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, Finland, Sweden, Brazil, Spain, the

The Blyth Lions Club celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2015. Joanne Klonikowski, left, District A9 Governor, and Hank Van Moorsel, second from left, Past District A9 Governor, presented the Lions, represented by Mary Lou Stewart past-president, second from right, and Alex Blair, president, right, with a certificate of appreciation for all of the club’s hard work. (Vicky Bremner photo) Netherlands, Estonia and the United States.

In 1975, then-President Doug Howson oversaw the construction of lawn bowling greens and the clubhouse at the park. When the club disbanded, the clubhouse was returned to the Lions Club. Members would eventually complete extensive renovations to the building and open the new structure in 2007. It’s now where members meet for the club’s regular bi-monthly meetings.

In the late 1970s, the Blyth club served as a sponsor club for two new Lions Clubs in Auburn and Londesborough. The clubs have since worked together over the years on a number of community betterment projects.

In the early 1980s, the club constructed a new picnic pavilion for the park, which has been used over the years for family picnics, church services, wedding receptions and the occasional beer garden.

In 1988, then-President Don Scrimgeour spearheaded the construction of a new wading pool at Blyth Lions Park.

The wading pool remains a part of

the park today. While in recent years, members had considered closing the pool and constructing a splash pad, after overwhelming demand from the community the Lions decided to keep the pool.

The Lions installed new playground equipment at the park in 2001 under the direction of thenPresident Wayne Wheeler.

The Blyth group was one of the first clubs in the district to extend membership to women. Bev Blair became the club’s first female member in 1998 and she was quickly followed by Lynn Logue, Eileen Jefferson and Brenda Brown.

It wouldn’t be long until the club elected its first female president, as in 2005 Brenda McDonald became president. She would be followed by a number of female presidents, including Mary Lou Stewart and, most recently, Vicky Bremner, whose time as president just came to an end in June.

It has been estimated that over $1.2 million has been raised by the Blyth Lions Club over its 72 years and returned to the community through the club’s various activities

and projects.

The club regularly donates to the Boy Scouts, minor hockey, softball, soccer and figure skating programs.

The club supports Lions Quest, a program to fight drug abuse and bullying in schools. It has purchased books, computers and sports equipment for local schools as well as contributing towards healthy eating programs, bursaries and school trips. It also supports initiatives such as Sight and Hearing Conservation, Diabetes Awareness, Hospital Foundations, the Christmas Bureau, Local Food Banks and Environmental Projects. All this, of course, in addition to the club’s ongoing commitment to supporting the Blyth community.

The Lions now host an annual steak barbecue and a food booth at the annual reunion of the Huron Pioneer Thresher and Hobby Association, which is its main fundraiser. However, the club is always hosting dinners and fundraising events such as snow volleyball and holey board tournaments in order to raise funds for community projects.

Congratulations Blyth!

Wishing everyone a warm welcome and a successful reunion

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PAGE 12, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

Blyth Legion expands, improves hall Recent expansion provides more space, accessibility

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen The Blyth Legion celebrated its 70th anniversary last year with a special open house during the village’s annual Streetfest. As part of the anniversary, Legion members marked the occasion with a ribboncutting ceremony on the building’s accessibility renovations, which included a new lift.

The Legion has changed its structure significantly in recent years. Originally, the Legion was a place for returning Canadian veterans and their families.

However, in recent years, membership has been opened to anyone supportive of the cause of honouring and remembering veterans to address declining membership and the loss of many World War I and World War II veterans.

Crystal Taylor, a long-time member and past-president of the Legion, says that Royal Canadian

were originally held in Orange Hall as well as the Blyth Memorial Community Hall, which had been constructed decades earlier as a monument and living cenotaph to lost veterans.

The first public appearance of members in their official capacity came at the Drumhead Service and Parade, which was held months later in Clinton. The Blyth Branch joined members from Clinton, Goderich, Wingham, Palmerston and Harriston in the parade. The Blyth Branch was said to have the second-largest group in attendance that day.

The current Legion building was constructed in 1949. It only took the Legion one year to pay for the new building. However, in 1960, Legion members took it upon themselves to make extensive alterations to the building, which meant that it wasn’t until September of 1962 that Legion members could hold a mortgageburning ceremony.

Since the founding of the organization, the Legion has

The Legion Hall has a fresh, clean look after the most recent renovation project has been completed.

Legion Branch 420 in Blyth is very much about friendship and building a community, meaning that the initial purpose of the Legion hasn’t changed in recent years.

“It’s the comradeship. That sums up the Legion as a whole,” Taylor said.

The Legion received its charter in May, 1946.

Prior to the establishment of a Legion Branch in Blyth, local veterans had joined the closest War Veterans Association (WVA). The WVA had joined the British Empire Service League in 1925 with branches in neighbouring communities such as Clinton, Goderich, Brussels, Wingham and Seaforth.

The Blyth Legion’s charter president was Dr. C. Kilpatrick, who had served his country as a medical officer in World War II. The creation of the Legion can be traced back to a 1946 meeting in the egg-grading station of Borden Cook, which was situated where the Blyth Variety is currently located.

The first official meeting of the Legion featured a reported “large and enthusiastic gathering” at the meeting, which was opened by Zone Commander Comrade N.W. Miller of Goderich.

At that first meeting, Miller then called upon Comrade T.G. Scibbins, president of the Clinton Legion Branch, who commenced the initiation and the 28 local veterans in attendance were admitted into the Legion fraternity.

Meetings of the Legion members

contributed extensively to a number of local causes, including youth programs, the Blyth Festival, the Blyth and District Community Centre and the Huron Thresher and Hobby Association, which holds its annual reunion in Blyth every September.

As recently as a decade ago, the Legion had a membership of over 300 dedicated to supporting its community.

Two years after the Legion was founded in Blyth, a group of local women founded the Blyth Legion Ladies Auxiliary in January of 1948.

Since that time, the Auxiliary has continuously supported the Branch in all its activities.

One of the Auxiliary’s historic annual events was a visit to London’s Parkwood Hospital, where Auxiliary members would spend time with veterans, baking them treats and playing bingo with them.

Mildred Ament, who had been a member of the Auxiliary for 35 years when she was interviewed for The Citizen’s special issue on the occasion of Blyth’s 125th anniversary in 2002, said the Auxiliary had always been an important part of the Legion structure in the village.

Ament’s husband, Stewart, was one of Blyth’s many World War II veterans.

The Auxiliary is now in charge of a number of annual projects, including Legion Week, the bursary program, track and field programs, youth education, the Adopt-a-Vet

The Royal Canadian Legion Branch 420 in Blyth held a special ribbon-cutting ceremony in July 2016 to mark the opening of the recently renovated branch building and elevator. From left: Provincial Bursary Chair Brian Smith, Legion Auxiliary Deputy Zone Commander Sharon Scruton, Legion Auxiliary/Branch member Susan Hubbard, Legion Auxiliary Past President Janice Henry, Legion President Ric McBurney, Trillium Foundation representative Don Butland, Legion First Vice-President Crystal Taylor, Legion member Kevin McDougall, Legion Secretary Donna Govier, Legion Auxiliary and branch member Elaine Frasier and Vice President of Ontario Command Derek Moore. (Denny Scott photo) program and Zone, District and Dominion conventions.

In recent years the Legion has lost a number of dedicated members, including long-time member Andy Lubbers, who was president of the Branch at the time of his untimely death and Thelma Johnston, who had been with the organization for decades.

For the past 10 years, the Legion has been fundraising towards a building fund in hopes of making the Branch more accessible and creating a larger upper hall that would be more attractive to community members wishing to rent it.

The addition, which was celebrated with a special grand opening celebration last year, was completed in two phases.

The first phase began in October of 2011 and was completed in May of the following year. This phase focused on a complete renovation of the building’s front entrance, moving the staircase to the upper

hall indoors. A new high-efficiency gas furnace was also installed as part of the renovation.

The Legion broke ground on the second phase of the renovation in September of 2015, which included an addition to the building, a lift and a barrier-free washroom. The cost of the second phase of the renovation

was over $225,000.

President Ric McBurney, who took over the position after Lubbers’ death several years ago, says the renovation project has now been paid in full. The next project on the agenda for the building, McBurney says, is likely the main roof of the building.

Blyth Christian Reformed Church Join us for Sunday services at 10:00 am and 7:30 pm We look forward to seeing you Contact: info@blythcrc.ca for information on Services and Groups or Pastor Gary van Leeuwen 519-441-7805

Something for everyone this fall GEMS Girl’s Club - Grades 4 to 8 - Wednesday 7:30 - 9:00 pm Sept. - April. Contact Kirsten 519-523-4421 or email dkpasschier@hotmail.com for info Cadets Boy’s Club - Grades 4 to 8 - Wednesday 7:30 - 9:00 pm Sept. - April.Contact Jim Shortreed at 519-523-4903 or email vjshortreed@tcc.on.ca for info Youth Group - for high school age youth - Faith Instruction - Alternating Tuesdays 7:30 - 8:30 pm - Youth group - Alternating Tuesdays 7:30 - 9:00 pm Young Adults - Ages 18 - 30 - Every other Thursday night, for Bible Study. Contact Luke Siertsema at 519-955-5579 Coffee Break and Story Hour - Wednesday 10:00 - 11:00 am Children learn Bible stories and enjoy crafts and games while moms are invited to participate in a women’s Bible Study fellowship time Bible Study Groups - Meet from time to time.

Please contact Pastor Gary for more details You’re invited to the Community Outdoor Service on Sunday, July 30th at 10:00 am at the Blyth Lions Park An old-fashioned picnic and games will follow the service.

Please bring your lunch and join in the fellowship.

If it’s raining the service will be held in the Blyth Christian Reformed Church

A part of the Blyth Community for 55 Years!

BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 13.

Thousands flock to the Thresher Reunion Nearly 60 years after the originators planned a little reunion, the show is one of the county’s biggest events Every September for nearly 60 years Blyth has hosted one of the most remarkable events in Huron County when the Huron Pioneer Thresher Reunion is held at the Blyth Campground.

Over three days the old fairgrounds is filled with lumbering steam engines, threshing machines and other farm equipment from and earlier era, dozens and dozens of gasoline and diesel-powered tractors lovingly restored by their owners, gleaming antique and classic cars and trucks, fiddlers and step-dancers and artisans exhibiting their crafts – oh, and thousands of people who come to enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of a time long gone.

The entire show is run by volunteers from around the county and across southern Ontario, many of them the third or fourth generation of the families that originated the event in 1962.

One of those originators, Simon Hallahan, at age 95, recalled the origins of the show for The Citizen as the 33rd Reunion was gearing up in 1994. The original idea was to bring together a number of men who had worked on threshing gangs during the first half of the 20th century – men like Simon’s own brothers, Dennis, Willie Joe, Danny, John and Raymond, as well as Alec Manning, Jack White, Hugh Chisholm and others.

Invitations were sent out to the owners of threshing outfits and the men who had worked them. The plan was to hold the get-together at the old Orange Hall on Dinsley St. West (long since demolished) but when they arrived they were denied entrance by the master of the lodge.

“He felt that we had consumed some liquor and shouldn’t be allowed in,” Hallahan told the reporter – no doubt accompanied by his mischievous chuckle.

Unable to go inside, the gang decided to get together out front of the building. Several men had brought fiddles and other musical instruments and began to play them.

One man was a piper and step dancer. They soon drew a crowd and eventually the Lodge Master decided they were safe to be allowed into the building.

In the following years the reunion moved to the fairgrounds. Wives of the early pioneers began to recreate the stupendous meals that had kept

hungry workers going at threshing bees. Speaking to The Citizen’s Toby Rainey in 1988, the late Annie Blair recalled how in the days of threshing gangs, the women would be up at 5 a.m. to prepare to feed 1220 men at lunch and supper, sometimes breakfast too. Relatives and neighbours would help out, cooking mountains of food over a red-hot wood stove.

By the fifth year committees were set up to provide more entertainment, organize fiddle and step-dance competitions and recruit more antique equipment. For more than 20 years the reunion was simply organized by the members before it was finally incorporated and a board of directors appointed.

One of the big changes from the early years is the huge campground that has grown up. It began because a few members who were coming from a distance wanted a place to stay on the grounds. A few camping spaces were created, then a few more. The Association purchased land to expand the grounds and shared the cost with the municipality to upgrade electrical and water service to the campsites. Today upwards of 1,000 campsites are filled for the annual Reunion.

And they’ve often filled early.

Campers start drifting in immediately after Labour Day. Many of them attend the Reunion for the old-time music, which has become a show within a show.

In fact, what makes the Thresher Reunion so entertaining is that there are several shows within the show, with each of the areas of interest having grown since it was added to the event years ago. So the craft show takes up the arena floor, still going strong after many of the craft shows that inspired its creation have disappeared. The car show takes up the entire ball diamond. There’s the music in the big Threshers’ Shed, a tractor pull for classic tractors, a huge display of small engines, a flea market for equipment parts – and that’s all aside from the big steam engines, the threshing demonstrations, the saw mill and the other original attractions.

The men in the original gang who gathered at the old Orange Lodge have long since passed on, but the show they created keeps on fascinating the generations that have followed.

Century-old steam engines still draw a crowd as they perform at the annual reunion.

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PAGE 14, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

Blyth Festival now a landmark theatre Few would have bet on the little theatre company’s success in 1975

Gil Garratt is the current Artistic Director of the Blyth Festival.

By Keith Roulston The Citizen From an iffy, shoe-string operation created by dreamers in 1975, to an institution so valued both culturally and economically that all levels of government were happy to donate millions for a 2016-2017 renovation of its home in Blyth Memorial Hall, the Blyth Festival has come a long way in 42 years.

Under Gil Garratt, the Festival’s ninth artistic director (AD), three more world premieres are being produced in the 2017 season, bringing the total to 130. Many of those plays have gone on to be produced widely elsewhere (the most recent being playwright Mark Crawford’s Stag and Doe in 2013 and The Birds and the Bees, last year). The most successful, Peter Colley’s I’ll Be Back Before Midnight (1979) is still being produced, nearly continually, somewhere in the world.

In Blyth, the Festival’s productions have been seen by more than one million spectators.

In the 1980s and 1990s Festival productions also toured around Ontario and across Canada

reaching thousands more.

It all began when young Blytharea native James Roy came to town with a dream in the spring of 1975.

Newly graduated the spring before from York University’s theatre program, he had worked on a small production at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille during the winter of 1974-1975. Paul Thompson, Theatre Passe Muraille’s artistic director, who had brought actors to the Clinton area to research and create The Farm Show, told him there was interest among people in Blyth to have a summer theatre in Blyth Memorial Hall.

After making contact, Roy and his wife Anne Chislett and a friend, visited Blyth in March. A round of calls on potential members for a board of directors brought unanimous acceptance and the Blyth Centre for the Arts was set up as the legal entity, producing the Blyth Summer Festival.

Roy was determined to mount the young theatre’s first season that very summer. With a small grant from the Ontario Arts Council that needed to be matched with local donations, the way was cleared to begin planning the season.

But what plays should be put on?

Roy made the most important decision in the Festival’s history when he saw, on his mother’s bookshelf, a copy of Harry J. Boyle’s Mostly In Clover, filled with humorous stories of growing up in Huron County in the 1920s and 1930s.

Roy and a small group of talented actors improvised a riotously funny show based the Boyle stories. For the second play of the season he played it safe, choosing the most successful play in theatrical history, Agatha Christie’s The Mouse Trap which had already been running for 26 straight years in London, England. Adding to this play’s attraction was the fact that the large cast required well-known local actors to fill the additional roles that the small professional company couldn’t.

Meanwhile Chislett, who was acting as a one-person administrative team, was drowning in tea from making call after call to

potential donors, each of whom offered her a cup of tea as they talked about plans for the theatre.

Equally important in getting the Festival off to a good start was the ingenious suggestion by Blyth Village Clerk Larry Walsh. Since Blyth Memorial Hall had been renovated over the winter to bring the auditorium back into use, why not have a rededication ceremony on opening night? The village bought tickets for a large number of dignitaries, ensuring a large (paid) opening night attendance.

And so on July 9, 1975 a full house witnessed Mostly in Clover, the Festival’s first world premiere.

Though barely surviving heat prostration in the furnace-like, unair-conditioned auditorium, most of the audience loved what they saw and told their friends. The Festival had its first hit on its hands, making it obvious that the key to the young theatre’s future was finding plays that spoke specifically to local audiences. (Despite its reputation The Mouse Trap was outsold two to one by the little local story.)

The Festival continued to grow throughout Roy and Chislett’s fiveyear tenure, though they drew little salary for much of that time. Roy’s final season would yield Colley’s smash comedy-thriller I’ll Be Back Before Midnight.

Meanwhile Chislett, who would become the Festival’s most-honoured playwright, contributed her first script for an adaptation of Boyle’s A Summer Burning in 1977.

As he prepared to leave the Festival, Roy made another of his most important moves, nudging the board of directors toward choosing Janet Amos as his successor. Though city born and bred, Amos had immersed herself in Huron County while researching The Farm Show and married a Huron County native, Ted Johns. Like Roy and Chislett they would become an important husband and wife team.

Before he left, Roy had put in

Curran and the drama about the 1980s’ farm financial crisis, Another Season’s Promise by Chislett and Keith Roulston.

During Kaszas’s tenure the Festival’s facilities expanded greatly, with improvements to the Festival’s administration building including a second-floor rehearsal hall and a “link” between that building and the original Memorial Hall which included the Bainton Gallery for the Blyth Festival Gallery, a new lobby and box office and new washrooms.

On Dinsley St. a huge addition to the Festival’s “garage” gave the set, costume and properties departments among the best facilities in the province.

But this would be the end of the expansionary period. During those good years, matinees would see as many as eight or nine tour buses parked on the side streets. But things changed with the opening of casinos around the province that offered free meals and other perks for tour groups. Tour operators stopped booking more expensive theatre seats and country lunches.

place plans for a new addition to the north side of Memorial Hall which would include back-stage storage space, dressing rooms for actors, and a fire escape that allowed an additional 90 seats in the balcony to be used. Those seats would be needed as Amos led the Festival to extraordinary growth over the next five seasons. In some cases this was thanks to the popularity of Johns’ writing and acting in scripts such as He Won’t Come In From The Barn, Garrison’s Garage and Country Hearts, a musical with John Roby providing the music.

During the Amos era, Chislett contributed her comedy The Tomorrow Box, and Quiet in The Land, which won the Governor General’s Award for best play and was presented across North America.

Amos was succeeded by Katherine Kaszas whose six-year term would see Festival attendance peak at more than 40,000 a year to see such hits as the musicals Girls In the Gang and The Dreamland by Raymond Storey and John Roby, the comedies Bordertown Café by Kelly Rebar and Local Talent by Colleen

Continued on page 15

Festival founder James Roy and his friend Jeffery Cohen get their first look at the Memorial Hall theatre in 1975. Note the wooden seats still in the hall at the time.

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BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 15.

Many Festival plays have left their marks Coates, who had been her associate artistic director. He would become the Festival’s longest-serving AD, remaining until the 2012 season.

The coup of the Coates’ era would be Innocence Lost: A Play About Steven Truscott by Bev Cooper that was perfectly timed, in the 2008 and 2009 seasons, with the government’s decision to throw out Truscott’s conviction for the 1959 murder of Lynn Harper at Clinton.

The play’s incredible success finally wiped out the deficit that had clouded the theatre’s future for 15 years.

Other notable premieres from the Coates era include The Ballad of Stompin’ Tom by David Scott in 2006, which was brought back in 2007 before touring to other theatres across the country, Paul Ciufo’s Reverand Jonah, which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award, and Ken Cameron’s Dear Johnny Deere, built around the music of Fred Eaglesmith, which premiered in 2012 and was brought back the following year.

Coates left following the 2012 season but programed the 2013

Ted Johns’ He Won’t Come In From the Barn brought many area residents to the Festial to see live cows and chickens in the stable created on stage.

For the 2003 season Chislett Amos turned over the Festival to Continued from page 14 From the highs of the late 1980s, Chislett for the 1998 season. Chislett would relinquish the reins to Eric things plunged to new lows in the attracted such A-list Canadian early 1990s during the term of Peter playwrights as Joanna McClelland Smith as artistic director when Glass, Carol Shields and David attendance plunged and deficits French but she really left her mark mounted. The Smith era included the when she turned to Paul Thomson community play Many Hands by for two multi-year smash hits. In Dale Hamilton that brought many 1999, his collective The Death of the local residents into the theatre Hired Man put a scaled down community but the Festival faced its threshing machine on stage to tell Serving the Agricultural Heartland about the rural societal change that first financial crisis.

The board of directors was came when threshing machines, of Ontario since 1975 reorganized and a call went out to which required many workers, were Amos, (who had completed a term replaced by combines that a farmer as AD of Theatre New Brunswick could operate on his own. The circumstances drew since she left Blyth), to return to unusual fascinated audience and the show revitalize the theatre.

Amos returned for the 1994 returned in 2000.

The following year Thompson season, turning to Chislett for a new adaptation of Glengarry School gave the Festival its biggest 413 Queen St., Blyth Days and bringing back Johns’ He production ever, and one of its most Won’t Come In From the Barn and popular, when he returned to his 519-523-4311 over the next four years she would fascination with Lucan’s Donnelly family with the Outdoor Donnellys. stabilize the operation but rebuilding attendance to its former levels would The show made use of both a remain a challenge for her and all professional cast which included Amos, and local actors, performing her successors.

Programming highlights of the parts of the Donnelly story in second Amos artistic directorship different locations all around the would be the Paul Thompson-led village, ending with the professional collective Barndance Live! about the company’s outdoor performance at CKNX barn dance (1996, 1997) and the fairgrounds.

The show was such a hit that it the first of London playwright Norah Harding’s autobiographical plays drew huge crowds again in 2002 and could probably have continued but This Year, Next Year.

After battling the changing the size of the show made it hard to realities of audience expectations, find enough people and resources to keep it going.

Happy Anniversary to our Hometown Blyth!

season before he left, with Peter Smith employed as interim AD to put the plays on stage. Smith added one touch of his own, programming Gary Kirkham’s Falling: A Wake in the Phillips Studio theatre.

Marion deVries became AD for the 2014 season in what turned out to be a short tenure. Her own musical play Kitchen Radio introduced her season which also included the premiere of Mark Crawford’s Stag and Doe which has gone on to great success across the country.

Gil Garratt, who had acted on stage since Death of the Hired Man in 2000, had directed several productions and written one (St. Anne’s Reel, 2014), was named AD for the 2015 season and remains in the position today. Having been part of the professional company for The Outdoor Donnellys, he returned to that fascinating family for his own one-man show, The Last Donnelly Standing in 2016. Another notable premiere from that season was Crawford’s comedy The Birds and the Bees which is on the 2017 playbill of many of Ontario’s summer theatres.

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A school project from 1977 reveals past times Back in 1977 the committee organizing the village’s centennial celebrations held a contest for elementary school students to collect tales from the village’s past. Gail Caldwell (now Gail Ulch) interviewed her grandfather Earl Caldwell for this story of building a part of Blyth’s main street. Here is the story she collected.

In February 1930 my grandfather Earl Caldwell and six other men helped draw gravel for the foundation of one of the stores in Blyth.

There was a vacant lot between the stores which are now Madill’s Shoes (vacant in 2017) and Jiwa’s Superior Food Market (Lisa Thompson M.P.P.’s office in 2017).

Jack Heffernan wanted to build a butcher shop. Grandpa and the other men with their teams of two horses drew the gravel from East

Wawanosh to where the butcher shop was to be built (today The Village Barber shop). They had to put green limbs under the runners of the sleigh to keep it from sinking into the sand. The steel runners would stick and freeze to the sand if there was too much frost and snow.

The roads were not ploughed in the winter so these six teams of horses had to make their own path.

Ten other men helped shovel the gravel on and off the sleighs. They got the foundation finished and built the store that summer. Years later it was made into three stores: a beauty shop, and butcher shop and Lloyd Walsh’s Barber Shop. (In the 1970s) Don Scrimgeour bought the beauty shop and butcher shop and made them into a food market.

All the men who helped draw the gravel except for Grandpa have passed away.

56th Reunion September 8, 9, 10 Thresher Campgrounds ~ Blyth, Ontario

Camping available as of Tues., Sept. 5 • Thurs., Sept. 7 Tractor Ride and Plough Day • Flea Market and Crafts in the arena Friday is Entertainment: • Steam Engines and Threshing Elementary Student • Antique Tractor: Massey Harris Step Dancing, Activity Day and • Antique Car: Chevrolet Impala Fiddling Contest, Senior Citizens Day • Lawn and Garden Tractor: Massey Ferguson Nightly Entertainment ($7/Friday only) • Antique Gas Engines and Working Displays • Children’s Activities For more info call 226-523-9100 www.blythsteamshow.on.ca • Antique Tractor Pull ~ Bringing the Past into the Future ~ • Kids’ Tractor Pull

PAGE 16, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

Grinding on Howson and Howson produces flour for Canada’s food manufacturers, including new products The Citizen The Howson and Howson flour mill remains one of Blyth’s most successful and enduring businesses, standing tall in the north end of the village.

While the mill was first created in 1902, it was when the Howson family purchased it in 1947 that it took on the family identity that remains evident in the business to this day.

The Blyth Standard called the structure “the great mill” on Jan. 31, 1902 when the three-storey brick mill first opened. This mill was a replacement for the building which burned down in 1901 under mysterious circumstances. That mill was constructed in 1855 by Joseph Whitehead of Clinton and it was Blyth’s first grist mill – established shortly after settlers first began to make their mark in the community.

The establishment of a local mill was no doubt a relief to farmers who, at the time, had to travel over 10 miles on muddy trails in order to have wheat ground for their families.

It was said that at the time a pioneer would often sling a sack of wheat over his shoulder and simply walk to the mill and back.

In 1866, it was Patrick Kelly, who would become the village’s first reeve in 1877, who bought the mill and the business really began to expand. Kelly ran the mill himself at times, but he eventually trained his son John, who would later take the mill over, naming it Kelly and Son. In the 1870s, it was said that the mill was producing more flour than it could handle and then, in the late 1880s, the mill switched to a roller process from its established stonegrinding process in order to increase capacity.

In 1892, the Kellys installed a 100horsepower wheelock engine, which later also powered the generator for Blyth’s first electric light plant located at the mill.

Patrick Kelly died in 1894 and his son sold the mill, which would change hands a number of times until the 1901 fire destroyed the building. At the time of the fire, the mill was owned by Augustus Boehmer of Berlin (now known as Kitchener) and rented by W.H. Finnemore.

While Boehmer had considered rebuilding the mill, he soon abandoned the idea. It wasn’t until a St. Marys man approached village council asking for an interest-free loan that council agreed. Council knew the importance of the mill in the community and also gave the man a 10-year tax exemption for the business.

It was on March 1, 1947 that Fred Howson took over the Blyth mill from Irvine Wallace. At the time Howson, who co-owned a Wingham mill with his father Frank, took over the Blyth mill, it had just one electic light bulb, with the majority of the operation using power from a coalfired steam engine.

In 1947, Fred was already the third generation of the Howson family that had made a living in the milling business. His grandfather, William James Howson, and his twin, Archibald McKinnon Howson, first learned the milling business in

Norval, Ontario. William would then move to Teeswater and then Wingham, while Archibald moved to Arthur.

While the Blyth mill had only ground feed since 1934, Fred and Frank returned to making flour as well as feed in 1948. This meant an expansion for the mill. The Howsons had to re-equip the mill to grind flour and with the increased production, the mill went from employing three people to 12 in the blink of an eye.

At that time, the Howsons built a new office and flour warehouse.

Further expansion would come due to a tragedy at the Howsons’ Wingham mill, when lightning struck the building and it burned to the ground.

Rather than rebuild in Wingham, the Howsons decided to expand the Blyth operation. The expansion included the construction of five new wheat silos, each capable of holding 140 tons, and a new feed warehouse.

In 1951, the feed mill was renovated with new equipment and the flour mill would also be renovated the following year.

Further expansion followed in 1955 and 1957. In the decade since 1947, the mill’s production had increased nearly threefold.

By 1960, the mill added bulk handling equipment, as well as a pneumatic system to convey product within the mill. At the time, in addition to Canadian production, the mill was exporting product to Britain, Russia and Cuba.

In Canada’s centennial year of 1967 the mill tripled the capacity of its feed mill and a new office and showroom building was added to the west end of the structure. Feed capacity would again be expanded just two years later.

However, while the feed business was expanding, the slowdown in the flour business caused concern with the Howsons and the company would go in a new direction in 1971, milling Durum semolina and Durum flour for making pasta. This conversion required the installation of special milling equipment.

After a 20-year agreement with Lancia Bravo Foods ended when that company shut down its Toronto operation, the mill’s market was drastically reduced, but there were still customers to be found and the flour operation would expand in 1996 and again in 1997 to over 20 times the capacity of the 1947 mill the Howsons first purchased.

In 1977, the company bought land on the outskirts of Blyth and built a new elevator complex that would eventually become the new home of the feed operation.

This division of the company would merge with another local company, Parrish and Heimbecker in Walton, to form Millstone Crop Services. A special day to celebrate the joint venture was held at the Blyth-area site in June of 2014. The arrangement became official on Canada Day of that year.

By the 1970s, all four of Fred and Mary Howson’s sons worked at the company. Jim began work there in 1960, followed by Bill in 1961, Doug in 1964 and Bruce in 1972.

Three of the four children are now semi-retired and the fifth generation of the family is now running the company, which began with Steve in

Today’s modern Howson and Howson flour mill has grown beyond recognition for those who would have visited the original mill (below left). During the celebration for one of the expansions staff posed for a photo on the feed dock (below right).

the late 1980s, followed by Jeff, Rick and Christopher in the 1990s.

In 1998, Howson Transportation Inc. was formed by the fifth generation of the family, providing outbound transportation for product.

Ten years later, Howson and Howson founded a dry grain transport business called agriEXCEL that’s now responsible for inbound transportation. The sector is now expanding its fleet annually with two new flour tankers expected this October.

A new, state-of-the-art cleaning house was installed in 2011 and in 2013 Howson and Howson initiated a seven-year replacement/expansion plan that aims to maintain and repair equipment every year between 2013 and 2019, while also modernizing it and creating expansion capability.

The Durum milling operation also expanded to begin producing whole wheat, whole grain and multi-grain semolina that is now used in specialty breads, flat breads, wholewheat wraps and couscous, in addition to the traditional pasta.

The company is always adapting and staying on the cutting edge of technology, says Rick, remaining an industry leader in the field, in which the mill is now the only independently-owned Durum mill in North America.

The company currently employs 48 and six students and Rick says the company’s dedicated employees remain the key to the company’s success under Jeff Howson, the company’s president.

INSIDE THIS WEEK:

HONOURS - Pg. 7

IPM ’17 - Pg. 10

LIONS - Pg. 20

Nearly 200 Huron County women honoured at event

‘The Citizen’ continues its countdown to IPM 2017

Jim Prior becomes second Brussels Lions to win award

140 CONGRATULATIONS to the Village of Blyth for the Past 140 Memorable Years and 140 Good Thoughts toward our Next 140 Years

JOHN RUTLEDGE ARCHITECT

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By Shawn Loughlin

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Volume 33 No. 25

Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Council supports Blyth 140

By Denny Scott The Citizen

Step by step Not all the fun at Hullett Central Public School happens on the ground. Some students opt to climb and get some air under them. It’s not quite a voyage to the stars, but whether it’s the jungle gym or a snow pile in the winter, some

students find the climb exhilirating. Last week it was, from left, Ashley Kuntz, Macey Adams and Sophie Greydanus who were enjoying the altitude on a warm June day on a slightly higher level than their fellow students. (Denny Scott photo)

New OPP detachment to be built in Clinton

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Central Huron Council gave the construction of a new Ontario Provincial Police detachment in Clinton the go-ahead at Monday night’s council meeting.

The new station will be located at 325 Albert Street, which is in the north end of Clinton on the east side of the main street, across Beech Street from the newly-constructed fire station.

Representatives of the IBI Group, working with Infrastructure Ontario on behalf of the OPP, were at the meeting on Monday night to speak to the project.

Amy Shepherd from IBI said that the Clinton site is just one of nine other sites across the province that are part of a sweeping “modernization” project

for the OPP’s buildings.

Due to the Clinton building being just one piece of the puzzle, Shepherd was asking for an extension on the construction deadline. The traditional timeline for such a project is 18 months, but planner Laura Young saw fit to extend the deadline to 24 months, not the 36 months the group was requesting.

Shepherd, however, spoke to council and asked for the 36-month extension, explaining that because the project includes nine sites, there are large group tenders that will need to be awarded and a massive amount of co-ordination required.

Councillors saw fit to grant Shepherd and the group their request. Deputy-Mayor Dave Jewitt said that it was likely that the group would get to the end of its 24-month

period and then return to council and ask for a 12-month extension, which council would then grant because the group would be in the middle of the project and it wouldn’t make sense to stop it at that point.

The property will be zoned as a community facility with a proposed front yard setback of 19 metres, which required a three-metre setback from the initial setback of 16 metres. The site would also need a setback of one metre on its exterior side yard as well, expanding it from five metres to six.

The site will include a parking lot for the detachment’s staff and the police department’s fleet for 112 vehicles, as well as a 12-space visitor parking area.

Young also told council that the application met the requirements for a minor variance, which include

meeting the intent of the Central Huron Official Plan, meeting the intent of the Central Huron zoning bylaw, the project is desirable for the appropriate development of the lands in question and it is minor in nature.

The conditions recommended for the application are that the police detachment be located within the footprint provided on the sketch in the planner’s presentation.

The variance approval period was originally set for 18 months, but was extended to 36 months by council at the request of the applicant.

Council approved the application with the extended deadline.

The new Huron OPP detachment had been a point of contention that arose from discussion at a MorrisContinued on page 14

The Blyth 140th committee has received the support it sought from North Huron Township, however, questions arose as to the exact plans of the committee during a recent North Huron Council meeting.

In a report presented by Director of Recreation and Facilities Pat Newson to council on June 19 it was explained that, as a result of bylaws held by the Blyth Lions Club, the group may need to move some events back to the Blyth Community Centre, where they had previously been planned.

Newson explained that, since she made the report, information about the Lions bylaws came forward, and that had a bearing on her recommendation.

“The Lions already have their own bylaws that there is no loud noise in the park after 11 p.m.,” she said. “We can’t waive our noise bylaw until they waive theirs and they haven’t had a meeting yet.”

Newson explained that the park, which is surrounded by residential property, might not be an ideal location for the event due to the Lions not meeting in time to waive the bylaw for the event.

Newson’s recommendation, however, was that North Huron Council agree to waive fees for renting municipal space for the celebration. She amended that, adding that North Huron could waive the rental of the upstairs hall at the community centre if the group needed it for the dance. She then said she knows it goes against council’s previous direction.

“I realize that waiving the fee is not what the fee waiving and donation bylaw [implemented by this session of council] recommends, however, had this group had more time to focus on planning and delivery, we likely would have insisted they come to us with a terms of reference,” Newson said, pointing out the group is a subcommittee of the Blyth Business Improvement Area, a committee of council. “We could create a terms of reference, as we did with the [Musical Muskrat Festival in Wingham] to waive some of their expenses.

“This is council’s choice, but the group is hoping to have the event at no charge or by donation,” she said.

Newson said if council does waive the fees, the town will track time and expenses and those costs will be posted to the general ledger in the economic development Continued on page 19

BLYTH, ONTARIO 519-523-9000

Congratulations Blyth!

Stop in and see us during the festivities

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Giving you Northern Huron County’s news since 1985!

BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 17.

Sparlings grows from sideline to leader

Sparlings started in the back of Grant Sparling’s hardware store but now is a major employer

Selling ‘bottled gas’ for people who bought propane stoves grew into the province’s propane leader at Sparlings What started out as a sideline, operated by Grant Sparling out of the back end of his main street hardware store, has gone on to be one of the largest propane distribution companies in Canada and one of Blyth’s largest employers.

Today Sparlings has a sprawling headquarters and distribution centre south of Blyth and seven other regional distribution centres, but it would never have happened if Grant Sparling hadn’t come to Blyth to work as an accountant at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

He liked the community, and when he had the opportunity to buy a main street hardware store he snapped it up. He was still in his 20s when he went into business for himself.

Part of his hardware business was selling appliances and those appliances included propane ranges.

In 1951 he sold a stove to Jim and Dorothy Armstrong who lived on Drummond St. in Blyth and supplied them with the “bottle gas” they needed for its operation. It was the small beginning of a major business.

The business continued to grow out of the back of the hardware store until 1955 when Grant bought the property of Queen (main) St. and Blyth Road, now occupied by Huron Tractor. By 1957 he added a bulk delivery truck, and the company began delivering propane to homes and farms within a 45-mile radius of Blyth.

Propane sales volume expanded with new uses such as corn drying and construction heating. By the early 1970s, Sparling’s Propane had outgrown its location and moved to a new, nine-acre site just south of Blyth.

In 1973 the company began transporting its own propane from Sarnia with one tractor and two trailers. The fleet would grow and by 1981 became a separate company, Sparling’s Liquid Transport (SLT), hauling not just liquid propane but other liquids such as anhydrous

ammonia. Shipping as far as Florida, Louisiana and California, the company continued to expand until it was sold to Great Western Resources in 1996.

In 1977 an office was added to the new location and in 1979 Grant sold the downtown hardware store (which by this point had expanded to cover three store fronts) so he could concentrate on the propane business.

With his wife Pat, they continued to grow and modernize the business and their sons Steven and David joined the company after they graduated from university. The company was twice named “One of the 50 Best Places to Work in Canada”.

On August 13, 2011, Sparling’s Propane quietly celebrated 60 years in the propane business. “No business succeeds if the people in it forget their primary purpose: Taking

Care of the Customer,” said Grant Sparling. “Service is the cornerstone of this company and 60 years confirms that our simple philosophy remains relevant.”

There were branch luncheons, cakes, and short speeches, but rather than host extensive celebrations for the company, Grant requested that opportunities were created to share the anniversary with others, so the company supported a variety of charitable groups and organizations across Ontario.

In April, 2013, by now with some 25,000 customers throughout Ontario, Sparling’s Propane Company Limited was sold to Parkland Fuel Corporation, Canada’s largest independent marketer and distributor of fuels.

The company, serving as Parkland’s platform for the aggressive development of the retail propane market in Eastern Canada, is still called Sparlings.

David Sparling left the company to become chief of the Fire Department of North Huron until earlier this year when he joined the Sparling family’s new venture the Blyth Cowbell Brewing Co. In 2012, Grant Sparling was

G. L. HUBBARD LIMITED

awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for his contributions.

Beyond his business accomplishments, he was a generous supporter of a multitude of causes in his community. Among many other things, his company provided land for two soccer fields in Blyth, he had been a strong supporter of the Blyth Festival since its beginning in 1975 and he was the largest nongovernment contributor to the renovation of the Blyth and District Community Centre in 2002.

Grant Sparling died, at age 91, on May 13, 2015. His beloved wife Pat died almost exactly a year later on May 26, 2016 at the age of 89.

In 2015 the Canadian Propane Association posthumously bestowed on Grant Sparling the organization’s first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award.

Steven Sparling retired as the company’s president in 2016 after completing his term on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Propane Association. In 2017 he became just the second person ever, after his father, to receive the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Blyth Legion Branch 420 Taking care of Blyth and area veterans since 1946

Happy 140th Blyth Congratulations Blyth on your 140th Anniversary!

Growers And Packers Of Quality Rutabagas

The Hubbard Family Dinsley St., Blyth 519-523-4554

Congratulations Blyth on your 140th Anniversary

The Howson Flour Mill is a 5th Generation family-owned flour mill, dating back to 1875.

HOWSON & HOWSON LTD. Flour Mill Blyth 519-523-4241

PAGE 18, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

Brewing a new Blyth business Blyth Cowbell Brewing Co. celebrates Blyth’s fascinating history

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Perhaps the biggest economic development story in Huron County in the last year has been the creation of Blyth Cowbell Brewing Co., which is set to open on Saturday, Aug. 5 just south of the village.

It was on the cold and snowy night of Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016 that David, Steven and Grant Sparling announced their plans to open a destination craft brewery on a 23acre parcel of land at the southeastern corner of the intersection of Blyth and London Roads. The event was dubbed “The Home Opener” and only adjoining landowners, area politicians and business owners were invited to the launch, held at the Emergency Services Training Centre, the future brewery’s next-door neighbour.

That night the Sparlings said that the building would have a footprint of over 20,000 square feet and the multi-use space would not only house state-of-the-art brewing equipment to brew the beer on site, but also a restaurant, an event space and a retail store.

Absent Landlord, the company’s flagship beer and the first in its Founders’ Series, was also announced that night. The name was a nod to Henry Blyth, the namesake of the village, who, despite giving the village his family name, never travelled from England to Blyth to see the village that bore his name.

All of the Founders’ Series beer will follow this path, being named after notable Blyth figures. Cowbell is also producing Renegade Series beers once a month, featuring bolder, non-traditional flavours intended for limited distribution at select pubs.

The company’s flagship beer was released to the public by way of a special First Batch Party on May 14, 2016 at the Blyth and District Community Centre. There were 1,005 tickets made available – the specific number selected to perfectly coincide with the census population of Blyth.

The evening featured live music, local food and guest speakers such as Stephen Rich, Cowbell’s brewmaster, and Peter Smith of the Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity, in addition to members of the Sparling family.

Absent Landlord was soon made available in local LCBOs and eventually spread across Ontario, finding audiences in communities as far away as Ottawa.

With help from Allan Avis Architects, the Sparlings said that they intended Cowbell to be North America’s first carbon-neutral brewery. This would mean smart design elements to take advantage of the sun’s position and natural heating and cooling methods, in additional to the traditional way of doing things.

The flow of water through the site is also crucial to its design. Again, it is the first brewery in North America to utilize a closed-loop water system that pulls water from the site to make the company’s beer and treats it on site.

In order to ensure the transparency of the company, President and CEO Steven Sparling says the brewery location will include an information centre that will compare the site’s energy and water uses to a traditional brewery so visitors can track the company’s progress.

Very early in the process, Cowbell also announced the creation of the Greener Pastures Community Fund.

The charitable fund will donate five cents from the sale of every one of the company’s beers to various projects at the province’s four major children’s hospitals. In addition, when the Blyth headquarters is open, beer sold in Blyth will benefit the Canadian Centre for Rural Creativity, which will be housed at the Grant and Mildred Sparling Centre, a building that, when constructed, will carry the names of the trailblazers of the Sparling family.

Those behind Cowbell Brewing officially broke ground at the site on June 6, 2016 with a special ceremony that tapped into local

Workmen scurry to put the finishing touches on the Cowbell brewery before its August opening. competitive ploughing history with Walton’s Canadian champion Brandon McGavin.

In October of 2016, the Blyth 140th committee kicked off its celebration of the village’s anniversary with the help of Cowbell. The company introduced its second Founders’ Series beer, Doc Perdue’s Bobcat, at the event, which was held in front of Scrimgeour’s Food Market and featured Don Scrimgeour’s famous sausage.

Over the course of 2016, the Sparling family acquired more land surrounding the original parcel, reaching a total of 111 acres on both sides of London Road.

The expansion will allow the company to grow more of its ingredients, both for on-site food and for its beer, at the farm. The farm will also be a cornerstone of tours of the site.

The site has evolved significantly in the years since Blyth was founded.

The property first made its way from the Canada Company to James Logan at a time that London Road through Blyth didn’t exist. The road spanned north through Hullett, but then followed the modern-day Cemetery Line and travelled north to Blyth Road, where travellers could take Gypsy Lane or a second winding road that’s no longer there into Blyth.

In 1896, Logan went into business with Charles Fraser, developing a brick yard on the property that would be in existence for over 20 years until it closed in 1913.

Prior to the sale to Logan, according to local historian Janis Vodden, the site was swampy and undesirable – home to a tamarack swamp. It’s amazing to see how far

it’s come, she said.

It was eventually split by the construction of the current-day London Road, which was built in the 1930s.

The property would eventually be home to the Henry family and a successful dairy operation, among other uses before being bought by the Sparling family.

After over one year of work at the site, the brewery is now set to officially open its doors to the public

on Saturday, Aug. 5. The event is for residents of Blyth only and invitations were sent out only to those within the Blyth postal code.

The brewery will then open to the general public on Monday, Aug. 7.

The company’s third Founders’ Series beer, Kelly’s Contraption, was released in mid-July, just ahead of the location’s grand opening.

For more information on Cowbell, visit cowbellbrewing.com.

Congratulations Blyth on 140 Years!

Blyth Decor Shoppe Queen St., Blyth Don "Barney" & Linda Stewart

Bus.: 519-523-4840 Home: 519-523-9448

Blyth 519-523-4551

Wishes to congratulate the Blyth on your 140th Anniversary Store Hours & LCBO & Beer Store Hours: M-W 8-7, T-F 8-8, Sat. 8-6, Sun. 12-5

Keeping Blyth’s stories safe Remarkable couple devoted to recording Blyth’s history

Janis and Brock Vodden

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Brock and Janis Vodden, both with histories that reach back generations in Blyth, have become the keepers of

the flame when it comes to the history of the village.

While the Voddens have spent the majority of their lives with more than a passing interest in the history of their community, they made it official in 2008 when they opened the Repository of Blyth History out of their home in the village.

In the years that have followed, the couple has welcomed over 300 visitors and they have connected many more with historical information via phone or e-mail to those who weren’t able to travel to Blyth, including a family from as far away as New Zealand.

In a special edition of Huron Historical Notes, a book published by the Huron County Historical Society, Janis says she remembers the humble beginnings of the project

as a list she created of all the Blyth names she could remember.

Janis recorded all of the names of people she could remember from the community and then add information about what she could remember about them.

Janis said that she believes history is crucial to the survival of a community, especially a small one.

Janis is quoted in the book as saying that communities that survive never forget their founders and those who helped keep the place alive and vibrant over the years.

Meanwhile, Brock says that he remembers an effort to recall all of the Blyth businesses he could.

Where possible, Brock also noted the location of the business.

From those humble beginnings, Continued on page 19

140 Years Happy Anniversary Blyth from all of us at CIBC Blyth 442 Queen St., Blyth Tel.: 519-523-4247 Fax: 519-523-4213

BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 19.

The Old Mill makes Blyth a fashion centre Retail outlet teams with Atlas Fur Tanning for a unique factory outlet

By Denny Scott The Citizen For nearly 60 years, The Old Mill has offered a unique Blyth shopping experience, but for the full story of how the landmark facility came to be, you need to delve deeper into history.

The business started with the union of two of the area’s historic families when Richard Snell married Glenyce Bainton in 1962. Richard’s family was among the first pioneering families in what is now the Hullett Ward of Central Huron and, in 1962, had more than a century of experience raising sheep.

Glenyce was the third generation of the Bainton family which had been in the wool and leather business in Blyth since 1894.

As far as the Snell family, its history stretches back to 1842 when Humphrey Snell left Devon, England and moved to a community now known as Snelgrove near Brampton.

In 1848, the family became among the first settlers to take land in Hullett Township on Lots 26 and 27 of Concession 7, or Summerhill Road as it’s known now.

The Snells brought purebred Leicester sheep to Huron County which started its now 170-year history with sheep.

In 1854, Humphrey became one of the founders of the Clinton Agricultural Fair which has recognized the importance of sheep from its inception to its modern-day iteration.

The family’s influence on Leicester sheep continued for decades, including, in 1933, having

one of the family’s rams selected as a national prototype for the breed.

Richard Snell carried on the family tradition and, in his teens, was showing championship sheep stock.

Snell purchased a farm on what is now County Road 4 just south of Londesborough and, within his first year there, started feedlot operations for raising sheep with 2,000 crossbred feeder lambs from western Canada that were shipped to packing houses in Ontario.

Glenyce’s family was deeply connected to the wool and leather business. She is the daughter of Franklin and Cenetta Bainton and granddaughter of Alan Bert Bainton, who, with his brother Frank Bainton and their sister Jayne, founded Bainton Brothers tannery in 1894.

By the late 1950s, Glenyce was studying at the University of Western Ontario and working summers for her family’s company, selling products to department stores.

She found, however, that she would spend hours calling on buyers who would offer less for her products than it cost to make them.

Snell decided then it didn’t make sense to sell the family’s products that way and that it was time for a change.

When she graduated in 1960, the retail outlet at the Bainton factory was only a small display of gloves outside the tannery office.

Expanding the retail area into a dirty room above the furnace in the family factory was the beginnings of the landmark fashion destination the Old Mill has become today. Due to strong promotion, the retail

The Old Mill offers a huge selection of fashions for all ages in its modern building. operation began to draw larger and larger crowds.

Later that decade, in 1965, the Snells purchased Atlas Fur Tanning and Dyeing Limited of Cookston (now Atlas Tanning) and relocated the company to the family’s Hullett Township farm. Through the acquisition, the family was involved in every aspect of sheepskin. Their main line is their wool on lambskins producing medical shearlings, decor sheepskin rugs and infantcare lambskins. They also produce sueded slipper stock shearling of various colours for manufacturers across Canada as well as their white shearling of various lengths. Atlas buys fleece wool from our local sheep producers used to make their blankets and socks.

Both the tannery and retail operations grew, and, in 1971, Richard and Glenyce built a new tannery and retail outlet on Highway 4 south of the village of Blyth on a farm previously owned by Gilbert Nethery that the Snells had purchased in 1963.

History seekers come from afar Continued from page 18 the Repository of Blyth History was born and the couple has since compiled more historical documents, photographs and articles than they know what to do with. But, to this day, they still get excited and fascinated when new pieces roll in.

Both Brock and Janis come from families that ran well-known Blyth businesses. Janis’s father, W.H. (Bill) Morritt, was the owner of a farm implement business from the 1930s to the 1950s, while Brock’s father, Harold Vodden, ran a bakery on the east side of the main street for many years.

While Brock’s family history reaches back to the 1930s, Janis’s stretches all the way back to the 1860s when her paternal greatgrandfather came to the Blyth area from Hay Township with his wife Isabella McIntosh, who was the daughter of one of the earliest settlers on London Road in Tuckersmith Township near Brucefield.

The family settled in Hullett Township, but would have had a Blyth mailing address.

Janis’s maternal grandparents, James Marshall and Hannah Spindler, also farmed in Hullett Township in the late 1800s before moving to Blyth. Marshall is recorded in the first three assessment rolls in the history of Blyth: 1877, 1878 and 1879.

With those historical roots firmly planted in the village, the Voddens

first began to focus their historical research on the 50-year period between 1850 and 1900.

It didn’t take long for word to spread that the couple was looking for historical information from the period and people began to pass along whatever information they had.

People came to visit to submit their information, but they also came with questions that led to the acquisition of more information.

Any time a visitor comes to the Repository, Brock says, they come looking for information, but often leave behind as much as they leave with.

It was a consultation with a friend whose family used to live in Blyth that convinced the Voddens to expand the parameters of their project and begin working to collaborate the village’s history nearly full-time.

The friend said she was pleased with the work the Voddens were doing and added that none of the information they were making available to people was in any history books.

With this conversation, the Voddens knew they were doing vital work and that it needed to continue.

Now, the Voddens’ collection consists of over 60,000 file cards containing information from a number of sources, such as newspapers, books, letters and personal recollections of history and life in the village.

In recent years, Karen Webster, a

former Blyth Public School librarian who lives near Wingham, has been an invaluable assistant to the Voddens, helping to archive and file information weekly.

Without Webster, Janis said, much of the work being done at the Repository would never be completed, as there is always a new lead to follow up on or a new project on the go.

Over the past nine years since the Voddens began focusing their attention on the project, they have assisted over 300 people in acquiring historical family information, with visitors coming from Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, California and all over Ontario.

The retail store was an instant success and has been expanding ever since.

By 1974, a warehouse, which now houses the company’s men’s collection, was built.

In 1979, the site changed again with the relocation of the old Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) station being moved south of the main building.

In 1989, construction was started on “The Shops”, an addition to the company which featured high fashion lines for the whole family.

The change was in no small part thanks to Glenyce and Dick’s daughter Amanda (now Aitken), who, after graduating in 1989, came to work full time.

In 2015, the business expanded further with The Dress Boutique, which saw The Old Mill’s retail space offer dresses for proms, graduations and wedding ceremonies or a nights out, as well as all the accessories to go with them.

The Old Mill and Atlas Tanning are two family run businesses that are unique in the heart of beautiful Huron County and thank the thousands of visitors over the last five decades for patronizing both of our businesses.

For more information, call 519523-4595, visit www.theoldmill.ca or search for the company on popular social media sites.

Congratulations Blyth on your 140th Anniversary Service to all makes & models

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PAGE 20, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

Fourth generation now runs Bainton’s The Bainton family has been working with leather since 1894

Bainton’s has been a presence in downtown Blyth since the family moved to town to take over the tannery in 1894.

Though the outward face of the with a small retail outlet that sold Bainton’s building on Westmoreland mitts, work gloves and leggings in Street hasn’t changed a lot since the original Bainton Brothers plant 1946 when the current building was before the tragic fire of 1898. constructed, the business within has Retailing continued when the plant was rebuilt and when the brothers changed immensely.

Today a fourth generation of the built an addition to the north side of family, Franklin Snell, Jayne the building in 1925 and began Marquis, Amanda Aitken and manufacturing yarn and blankets Richard (Jr.) Snell run the retail from their own virgin wool, those outlet located in the old tannery products too were offered to the building as well as the tannery itself, public. Basket weave blankets, regular brushed wool blankets, auto located south-east of Blyth.

The Westmoreland Street building robes, horse blankets and hand has become an Ontario landmark knitting yarns were all sold through with people travelling from all over the factory outlet or exchanged with southern Ontario and beyond to shop farmers in payment for their wool.

Circumstances in the 1960s, for high-quality wool and leather clothing and accessories at factory- however led to a huge expansion of the retailing arm of the Bainton outlet prices.

There has always been a retailing Limited operation. First, the move of element of the company, starting the tannery operation to Hullett

Township, because of worries about pollution of Blyth Creek, left the downtown building nearly vacant except for the small retailing operation, offices and storerooms.

Secondly, Frank and Cenetta Bainton’s only daughter. Glenyce, joined the firm. She’d grown up around the wool and leather business and studied business administration at the University of Western Ontario.

Glenyce at first travelled doing sales for the company to other retailers but became interested in expanding the retail outlet at Bainton’s Old Mill. She recognized that more and more people were willing to make the drive to Blyth to get quality wool and leather products at factory outlet prices.

When the small retail outlet could no longer cope with the numbers of people coming, the family decided to expand, taking over more of the downtown building. The next few years brought phenomenal growth at the factory outlet. By 1970 on a fall weekend, it was hard to find a parking space in the entire downtown area of Blyth as shoppers flocked to the annual fall sale.

The history of the family business has always played a major role in attracting customers with the date of the founding, 1894, proudly displayed in many advertisements.

That year marked the arrival of three members of the Bainton family from Wingham. Allan Bert, Frank and Jayne Bainton were the children of Mrs. Charles Bainton who had lost her husband some years before. Her older children had moved away from home. Allan Bert was working in a tannery and glove factory in Wingham before coming to Blyth.

Frank had been working at a woollen mill in Teeswater.

When they moved to Blyth the family rented an old tannery building on the north side of Blyth Creek, just east of where the water reservoir is today. They started a wool pulling and tannery operation, calling it Bainton Brothers. The two brothers worked in the plant while their sister ran the office.

Leading printer has deep roots The Whitmore family has been printing in Blyth since 1938 – but there’s nothing old-fashioned in this shop

Blyth Printing’s staff of (left to right) Jeannette Blok, Ken Whitmore, Steve Dawe and Kim Watson work with modern digital equipment. that attracts business from all over

By Shawn Loughlin North America.

The Citizen Ken Whitmore is at the helm of As commercialized printing has the company and has been since been changed by the internet and 1989. He is the third generation of worldwide printing companies, his family to run the business, there’s still something to be said for stretching back to Ken Whitmore a quality product at a good price Sr., his grandfather, in the 1930s.

Ken Whitmore Sr. and his wife with excellent customer service.

Gladys established Blyth Printing in This is the principle that drives Blyth Printing, one of the county’s 1938 at the same time they most advanced print shop and one purchased The Blyth Standard. The

Standard had been owned by J. H. R. Elliott from 1910 to 1938, publishing it until 1934, at which time he turned it over to his assistant, Albert “Shorty” Robinson for a number of years before selling to the Whitmores.

The Whitmores moved quickly to be on the cutting edge of newspaper printing technology, installing the first Linotype, a machine with a keyboard that cast lines of type in metal.

This was at a time when each town had a newspaper and every newspaper had its own printing press.

Ken says that much of the company’s work in those days was newspaper printing, but the Whitmores would also print flyers and other commercial projects throughout the week when they weren’t printing The Standard.

In keeping with employing cutting-edge technology, in 1954, Ken Sr. and Doug installed one of the area’s first Heidelberg presses – a German manufacturer and name synonymous with quality worldwide. That machine is still in the shop today and is used occasionally for die-cutting.

In 1958, Ken Sr. died and his son Doug took over the business alongside Gladys. Doug’s wife Lorna would also work at Blyth shortly after Doug came aboard.

When Gladys died in 1971, the Whitmores looked to focus on commercial printing and sold The Continued on page 21

Sheepskins, hides and furs were bought from butchers within a 100mile radius including Owen Sound, Exeter and Mitchell. Furs were also purchased from trappers.

Hides and sheepskins were picked up monthly with a horse and light wagon in the summer and a sleigh in the winter. These hides and furs were sold to dealers in Toronto and London.

Some of the furs were custom tanned in Blyth and all the sheepskins were processed in the village. The wool was taken off the skins, processed and sold to the woollen mills in the area. The skins were tanned and made into mitts, work gloves and leggings and sold through their factory outlet which was destroyed by fire in 1898.

After their outlet was destroyed the Bainton Brothers bought the property on the south side of the creek and built on the present Bainton’s site.

In 1925 they added to the north side of the building where they installed machinery to manufacture blankets and yarns from their 100 per cent virgin wool.

In 1930 Allan Bert Bainton died at age 59. His son Franklin, just 20 years of age, now ran the business along with his uncle Frank Sr. They began a wool pulling business again and manufactured knitting yarns.

In 1934 Franklin Bainton Sr. died at age 64 and Franklin Jr. was left, at just 24 years of age, to guide the fortunes of this family’s business by himself. Over the next nearly 60 years, however, he was to prove that his early start was just an opportunity to make a bigger mark on the company.

It was the height of the Great Depression. Workers at the plant earned $2 a day for working six days a week, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

In 1935 Franklin married Cenetta, who joined the business,. In 1938 their daughter Glenyce was born.

The outbreak of World War II brought a growing demand for wool and the Depression was left behind.

In 1946 Franklin expanded the original building, adding a threestorey building on the east and north side of the original old mill. He also refaced the front of the original building with red brick.

He increased the production since he now bought skins from the meat packing industry all across Canada from Prince Albert, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. At that time Bainton’s were processing

approximately 5,000 skins per week.

In 1958 he had purchased the former George Sloan farm, located a mile south and east of Blyth in Hullett Twp., from Chester Morrison. In 1963 he moved the tannery and wool pulling operation to the farm where a 13-acre site provided room for a treatment lagoon system.

As the business boomed, a second modern processing plant was built in 1979, adjacent to the 1963 plant in Hullett Twp. In 1987, Franklin and Cenetta turned over the retail part of the operation to their grandchildren, Franklin, Jayne, Amanda and Richard.

Franklin and Cenetta Bainton continued to work at the tannery with Franklin and Richard Jr. long after the age at which many people retire. On December 22, 1992 Franklin Bainton, aged 82, collapsed at his office at the tannery. It was perhaps fitting that he died at work at the company he had devoted his life to building to international prominence.

Cenetta died in 2002 after several years recovering from a stroke.

But the businesses both go on as the Bainton family ancestors would appreciate.

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BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 21.

Where the rutabaga is king Blyth has been a major centre for rutabaga growing for 150 years

The Hubbard rutabaga processing plant sends its products all over North America.

Bruce Railway coming in 1875,

By Denny Scott rutabagas and turnips became a part The Citizen of the local farm crops. Five years When a village has a self- later, turnips were being shipped to proclaimed Rutabaga King, you can Kentucky to feed horses and sheep.

Blyth became the centre for be sure it takes its neeps seriously. rutabagas in 1939 when local The vegetables have constituted a significant industry in Blyth for businessman Russell Dougherty more than 150 years and the G.L. began waxing rutabagas in part of Hubbard Ltd. rutabaga plant on the building most recently housing Dinsley Street East has been at the Campbell Transport.

Dougherty built a waxing plant centre of that industry.

Today, the plant stores up to near the Canadian Pacific Railway 200,000 rutabagas, which are a station and moved his operations larger, sweeter cousin of the turnip, there by 1944.

Aside from being a businessman, before processing and shipping across the continent and employs up Dougherty was also an inventor. In to 13 people in the field operations 1951, he built North America’s first precision seeder, allowing rutabaga or in the plant.

With the London, Huron and seeds to be planted individually instead of sown by hand and then

thinned when the plants grew.

Farmers from Bruce County all the way south to Exeter grew the vegetable to be brought to Blyth to be waxed. The plant, through its 15 employees, trimmed and waxed rutabagas during the winter months, processing 1,500 to 1,800 bushels daily.

During harvest and field work, as many as 150 people would be busy in the fields Dougherty’s late wife Ruth once explained.

In the mid-1950s, A.H. Wilford worked with Dougherty to create the Blyth Trade Fair in storage buildings at the rutabaga plant.

Wilford was something of a celebrity according to his obituary in The Blyth Standard.

Born in Blyth on March 16, 1887, Wilford would come to be known as the rutabaga king for his work promoting the vegetables across North America.

Wilford helped Dougherty by travelling to Ottawa to give rutabagas to every Member of Parliament and, later, during a royal visit to London, Ontario, to the Queen of England.

In 1963, George Hubbard, who had been growing and processing rutabagas in a rented facility near Bright, purchased the plant from Dougherty. That first year, he grew 70 acres of rutabagas and, by the turn of the millennium, he was up to 275.

The rutabagas processed at the plant now come from Hubbard farms surrounding the village of Blyth and make use of more mechanical processes than in the early years.

The company has approximately

Whitmore plans to keep ahead

Doug Whitmore, seen with the old newspaper press, took over Blyth Printing from his parents and turned it over to his son Ken. Continued from page 20 Blyth Standard.

While Ken Whitmore would officially take over Blyth Printing from his father in 1989, he had been working at the company for over a decade.

Ken says that he began working with his parents when he was about 10 years old, completing some of the more simple tasks like cutting and folding some of the printed products the company produced.

While Ken took over operation of the business, Doug continued to work at Blyth Printing part-time until 2006, one year before he would pass away. Lorna also worked for the same length of time, starting in 1965 and working through until 2006.

Blyth Printing is now a fullservice sign shop, graphic design and wide-format printing business on the village’s main street. Ken says that he and his employees always take great care in being on

the cutting edge of printing technology. If there’s an innovation in the business, Blyth Printing is very often the first, if not one of the first area companies to adopt and evolve with the changing technology.

So much has changed over the years, Ken says, as all of the printing work is now done by computer. He says that Blyth Printing was one of the first to implement the computerto-plate process and the only fourcolour press in the county. In 2007 they began doing wide-format printing and entered the sign and vehicle graphic business.

Blyth Printing, for years, has been the go-to printer for established Huron County institutions like the Blyth Festival, North Huron Publishing and Ideal Supply, among many others.

For example, Ken says that the company just invested $40,000 in a Morgana creasing machine. While that might sound like a lot of money

to fold paper, Ken says that kind of investment is necessary to continue providing the quality customers expect.

In addition, he and employee Steve Dawe just recently attended vehicle-wrapping training in an effort to improve. Ken says that whenever training like that is available, his company takes advantage of it. If the company can get better why wouldn’t it, he wonders.

While the focus is always on producing the best product possible, Ken says that customer service has always been a cornerstone of what Blyth Printing does. Whether it’s a $10,000 printing order or a 25-cent photocopy, Ken says, he wants customers to feel as if they’re important and that they’ve been worked with fairly.

The company now employs four full-time employees: Ken, Steve Dawe, Jeannette Blok and Kim Watson.

240 acres of crops to be harvested.

Specially manufactured machines plant the crop and weeds are controlled through scuffling, a specialized technique for row-crops which involves spacing cultivator teeth so weeds are removed but the crop is left untouched.

Harvesting is done with a huge machine that George built himself and has modified several times.

George passed away in May of 2014 in his 78th year.

His daughter, Susan Hubbard, who has been at the factory for 34 years, said that things are still very much the same as they were under her father.

The company employs 12 people at peak season, still use the same equipment her father brought in and still ships all over the world.

The village of Blyth has had a

lasting mark left by the rutabaga industry, and, in 1989, started the Rutabaga Festival to mark the vegetable’s impact. The festival, unfortunately, was stopped after several years due to a lack of volunteers.

The Hubbard plant is now owned

by George’s children Susan, Cathy McNichol, Philip Hubbard and Selina Treble with the first three working in the company.

While G.L. Hubbard Ltd. is likely the longest-lived endeavour on the site it occupies, however it isn’t the first. It was in this area that the Grey, Young and Sparling salt well was located in the 1870s. The salt well was only recently filled in according to Susan. After the decline of salt business, an early flax mill occupied the property.

Russell Dougherty (left) shows a rutabaga to Blyth Reeve Bill Morritt during a Blyth trade fair in the 1950s. – photo courtesy Jan Vodden.

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PAGE 22, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

Stop the presses!

Newspapers in Blyth see many changes in 140 years change in newspaper publishing.

New offset printing technology replaced the process of lead type, covered with ink, pressing against paper. Instead, a facsimile of the final newspaper page could be created, then photographed and transferred to a metal plate. This plate was put on a drum on a press that printed in both sides of paper coming off a roll. A newspaper that previously had taken Ken Whitmore Sr., longtime editor and publisher days to print could be of the Blyth Standard sets type on a Linotype, a produced in less than an hour, and contain state-of-the-art machine in its day. photographs – which It’s 140 years since the first previously had been difficult and newspaper was published in Blyth, expensive to reproduce. though 2017 also marks the 125th The presses, however, were anniversary of a regularly-published expensive to buy so generally one newspaper serving the community. central press would print several The Citizen, which currently newspapers. serves Blyth, Brussels and the In November 1971 Jill and Keith surrounding communities, is the Roulston purchased The Standard, latest of a string of newspapers and having it printed in Goderich at the will mark its 32nd anniversary this Goderich Signal-Star printing plant, coming October. which printed newspapers from as The village’s very first newspaper far away as Wiarton in the north and was The Review, which appeared in Forest in the south. In 1975 they January 1877, published by M. L. added new computerized typesetting Aldrich, but it only lasted until equipment for faster production with March of that year. a more professional look.

Several other newspapers came With Keith Roulston becoming and went over the next few years more involved in the Blyth Festival, before a publisher from Exeter the Roulstons sold The Standard in moved his printing equipment to 1977 to A. Y. McLean of McLean Blyth and published The Blyth Brothers Publishing, a family-owned Standard in 1892. Even then editors company that had published The changed frequently until J. H. R. Huron Expositor in Seaforth for Elliott purchased the paper in more than a century and had October, 1910. He published the purchased The Brussels Post earlier paper until 1934 when, after having in the decade. been involved in selling insurance on In 1982 all three newspapers the side for some time, he decided to were sold to Signal-Star Publishing make that his full-time occupation. in Goderich. The Brussels Post was He turned The Standard over to amalgamated with The Huron his assistant Albert “Shorty” Expositor and The Blyth Standard Robinson who, over the next four with The Clinton News-Record. years, would set new (low) Unhappy with not having a standards. One story says that newspaper for their own Robinson’s production in those days communities, by 1985 many when type was set by hand, was so residents of Blyth and Brussels were shoddy that a copy of The quite willing to invest in a Standard’s front page was mounted community-owned newspaper to on the wall of the press room of The serve the two communities.

Globe and Mail in Toronto as an Energetic community volunteer example of how not to publish a Sheila Richards of Brussels brought newspaper. on board the majority of the nearly More seriously for historians, 50 investors in North Huron Robinson saw no need to keep back Publishing Company Inc. The issues of the newspaper on file and company’s new newspaper, called so nearly all early records of the The Citizen, brought the Roulstons newspaper have gone missing. back into newspaper publishing.

Things definitely looked up when The first issue was dated Oct. 23, Ken and Gladys Whitmore bought 1985. Jill Roulston managed the the paper in 1938. They installed the office, while Keith Roulston acted as first Linotype, a machine with a editor and publisher until 1991 when keyboard that cast lines of type in he turned the editor’s role over to metal. It was a time when each Bonnie Gropp of Brussels. She town’s newspaper had its own press, remained in the role until 2010. printing one side of each sheet of Shawn Loughlin succeeded her and paper, then turning it over and remains editor today. printing the other, in a laborious In 1991 the company acquired process that took days to create the the farm magazine The Rural Voice weekly newspaper. During the rest which the Roulstons had originally of the week the staff would print founded in 1975 before selling to flyers and other commercial McLean Brother Publishing. The printing. magazine remains a part of the North In 1958, Ken Whitmore died and Huron Publishing Company Inc. his son Doug joined his mother in family, along with Stops Along the the newspaper and printing business Way, a tourist magazine published with Doug’s wife Lorna later coming three times a year. on board. When Gladys died in Newspaper industry technology 1971, the younger Whitmores continued to change rapidly. Starting decided to sell the newspaper and in the 1990s computers played an concentrate on commercial printing. ever-increasing role in newspaper It was a time of revolutionary production. By the early 2000s

computers were used for setting all type, designing advertising and assembling whole newspaper pages.

Rather than deliver physical copies of the finished pages to the printing plant for photographing to make printing plates, digital copies of the pages were transmitted over the internet.

At the same time, digital cameras replaced film, simplifying and speeding up the photographic side of news reporting. Previously printing a single full-colour photograph could

cost hundreds of dollars and require a trip to the city to a company that could “separate” a colour photograph into the four basic colours (black, magenta, cyan and yellow). Digital technology made it infinitely easier to print more fullcolour photos if the printing press had the special equipment required.

Meanwhile the newspaper publishing landscape changed unimaginably from the 1980s. More than half the community newspapers in Ontario are owned by one of three

large companies. The printing plant in Goderich was closed and The Citizen, The Rural Voice and Stops Along the Way are now printed by a family-owned company, McLaren Press Graphics in Bracebridge.

North Huron Publishing Company Inc. and The Citizen will reach an important milestone later this year when Deb Sholdice becomes publisher, ensuring that it remains one of the region’s few locally-owned and managed newspapers.

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BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017, PAGE 23.

Peter Gusso holds the sign board for the old station

Home station Travellers once passed through Gusso family’s living room

By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen While the beautiful, historic building is now simply a plain old single-family dwelling, the Gusso family home has a colourful history along an important route throughout southwestern Ontario.

The Gussos, Peter and Sarah, who own the award-winning Part II Bistro on Blyth’s main street, and their daughter Georgia, now live in the Dinsley Street home that operated as a bed and breakfast for many years and as a train station for decades before that.

The station was along the Grand Trunk Railway that was affectionately nicknamed the “Butter and Eggs Special” because of the

sheer number of Huron County farmers that would ride the train to London in order to sell their produce at markets there.

The rail line was also known for its colourful and unpredictable nature. It was known for its casual train crew and erratic timetable, in addition to engineers being partial to stopping at any point along the line to stop for families flagging the train down in search of a ride.

The rail line had deep roots in Blyth, as Patrick Kelly, Blyth’s first reeve and a tireless entrepreneur, played an integral role in the construction of the line.

Blyth and its surrounding communities had largely yet to be cleared when Kelly arrived in 1866.

He would flex his business muscle in

the coming years, however, owning a flour and grist mill, a sawmill and sash and a door factory.

Early on, Kelly knew that his businesses didn’t stand a chance of competing if the goods he produced had to travel by horse and team to Clinton and be sent east.

Kelly first approached the Grand Trunk Railway to discuss his idea of an extension to Blyth, but company representatives weren’t interested.

He then travelled to Hamilton to pitch the concept to the Great Western Company, which had just built a railway from London to Sarnia.

Kelly accompanied his argument with figures to back it up, including the value of products such as firewood, flour, tan bark, sheep and cattle being shipped to Buffalo. And while the Great Western Company was interested, representatives required a substantial investment of $25,000 from municipalities along the northern portion of the railway.

Municipalities were on board with the railway and Kelly’s original plan to halt the line at Blyth was changed when East Wawanosh and Morris Townships, as well as Wingham agreed to contribute to the cost if the line was to be extended to Wingham.

After a busy summer of 1875, which brought dozens of workers into the village – and with that its own problems, like the workmen filling up Blyth hotels, drinking and causing a commotion on occasion – the ceremonial first train ran from London to Wingham on Dec. 11, 1875.

A number of reeves and councillors from contributing townships were on board to take the first ride. The politicians had been entertained at a special banquet for 600 people, at which Kelly and Sir John Carling, another investor in the

company, were the guest speakers.

By the following year, one train would leave Blyth along the line every morning, with another returning that afternoon or evening.

The railway would have a tremendous effect on the Blyth economy in the coming years, elevating the village to a status previously unknown to it. In addition, Edmunson Watson, who was known as Huron’s Cattle King, used the railway to ship carloads of cattle from Blyth, as well as sheep from the Lucknow area, to markets throughout both Canada and the U.S. from the small village station.

In the late 1880s, the Grey, Young and Sparling salt well was shipping an average of five carloads of salt per day from the station, while local brick yards were also shipping carloads of bricks daily. In 1892, there were reports that 23,000 barrels of apples had been shipped from the village to markets as far away as Chicago.

Also in the 1880s, the Grand Trunk Railway would buy up the struggling Great Western company, only for Grand Trunk to also find itself struggling in 1919, when it was brought under the wing of Canadian National (CN) Railways, which was owned by the crown.

In the decades that would follow, many local students would use the railway to travel to Clinton every day to attend Clinton Collegiate or Clinton Business College. Those would prove to be long days, with the train leaving Blyth at 7:20 a.m. and not returning until 7:20 p.m.

By the 1930s, many of the Blyth companies that had helped keep the railway profitable had long since closed and the Great Depression had a crippling effect on the line, which posted a loss of $9,000 in 1939.

In December of 1940, word leaked

that CN was trying to close the line north of Clinton and, despite local protests, train service ended.

Several locals rode the train for sentimental value on April 26, 1941, which was its last ride. The tracks would be removed in the coming years so the steel could be used in the war effort.

The station building, which is now on the east edge of town near the end of Dinsley Street, has had new life breathed into it in recent decades, as Linda and Chan Vir bought the building in 1989 and converted it into a bed and breakfast called The Station House.

The Virs operated the Station House for a number of years, before it was purchased by area natives Peter and Sarah Gusso in December, 2009.

The couple continued to operate the bed and breakfast under the Station House name for a number of years, also living in the home and renting out the majority of the property’s rooms, including those in the coach house, apart from the station building itself.

The house still features the station’s “round room”, which was the station’s front foyer. It remains largely unchanged from those days, although large mirrors have been installed where the door and ticket wicket used to be.

The Gussos had a daughter, Georgia, in 2011 and soon opened Part II Bistro on Blyth’s main street, in addition to running their own catering business.

As the workload mounted and family duties increased, the Gussos decided that 2017 would be the first in nearly 30 years that the property would not be open as a bed and breakfast and the Station House was permanently closed to the public.

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PAGE 24, BLYTH 140TH ANNIVERSARY SALUTE 2017

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