Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty, with family roots of more than 100 years in Huntsville and Almaguin
This photo was posted on the If You Grew Up in Huntsville You’ll Remember Facebook page by group admin Ruby Truax. It’s of the Blue Bell Tea Room, formerly located at 4 King William Street.
Do you have any memories of this business?
Do you have interesting photos to share of days gone by? We’d love to see them! Email: [email protected]
See more Wayback Wednesday photos HERE.
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Less Kinsman was the owner. My Dad stopped there ever Thursday to take a order for Marins Wholesale of Bracebridge. They would go to our cottage for a weekend every summer. 4 guys with a great friendship.
How long has this building been here? The 1954 Insurance Plan for the town of Huntsville shows a building marked as ‘frame’ and ‘Rest’ on the site. Further along, was a ‘dwelling’ adjacent to 9 cabins. I think that was the property of Mr. and Mrs. Ennest who my parents visited a lot. So the building there today is likely the original in a more recent ‘boom town’ guise?
It was a stopping point for hydro crews heading out in the mornings. In the early 60’s, our driver Fred Mitchell and our foreman Jack Bowes would stop there to let us grab a bite. I ran the chainsaw and brush saw for several summers. While we worked at removing danger trees and spraying ‘brush killer’ on hydro right of way along Hwy.60 into Algonquin Park.
A number of us were on lacrosse teams at the time and getting home from the south at 2 or 3 and sometimes 4 o’clock in the morning left little time for sleep and food. The stops were great. Then we could lay up in the back of the service truck and get a nap on the way to the job site.
That little place never seemed that large. But it seemed to get the crews coffeed, some breakfast and on the road. I seem to remember it as clad in faux log siding stained brown.
Don’t have any recollection of the Bluebell being any other place but where that little building stands today. But not being a ‘townie’, that isn’t surprising.
I remember it the man running it was les Kingman and daughter good food small restaurant but very nice people