Canada is older than Huntsville, and so is our local library which was established in its earliest form in 1881. As part of its Canada 150 celebration, the Huntsville Public Library wanted to honour its past with an historical tour of former library locations.
“We historically have been in seven different locations that we know of starting in about 1881 to our present day location,” says Cortney LeGros, the library’s Coordinator: Outreach, Programs & Partnerships and the guide for the tour. “I will stop and point out all of the places we’ve been, and talk a little bit about the history of Huntsville at that time, the history of the building, and a bit about the businesses that were there.”
All but one of the former library buildings are still standing.
The library began as a Mechanics’ Institute, which provided working men with resources like manuals, journals and research papers that would help them in their trades. “It was a very different collection,” notes LeGros. “When we first opened (in the 1800s), we had 300 items and now we have more than 16,000 in our collection. And those early items were all for learning and working, there was not reading for pleasure.”
By the early 1900s, things had changed. Books for pleasure had been added, and the library’s first program – chess, started in 1898.
The Huntsville Public Library, past and present:
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- This 1908 photo shows the original location of the Dominion Bank, which opened in 1899 (Photo: Muskoka Heritage Place)
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- Boyd’s Superior Store, date unknown (Huntsville Public Library)
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- Huntsville’s Town Hall in 1967
To learn more about the Huntsville Public Library’s past, join the history tour on August 17 from 12-1 p.m. Meet on the front steps of the library just before noon, and be prepared to walk about one kilometre in total. The talk is geared toward adults but children interested in history are welcome.
If you want more Muskoka history, join the Muskoka Watershed Council at the Huntsville Public Library Annex (7 Minerva Street) on August 9 at 4:00 p.m. for “Shaped by the Shield: Environment, Identity, and History in Muskoka” by Dr. Andrew Watson, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan. The talk will feature Dr. Watson’s research about the ways that the environmental realities of the Canadian Shield shaped the rural identity of Muskoka during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It examines the transformation of Muskoka from a strictly Indigenous place into a settler colonial society and the rise of tourism, and assesses the ways that social, economic, and environmental changes shaped sustainability and rural identity in the past. To RSVP for the talk, click here.
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