It’s Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Pharmasave Huntsville!
On August 3, 1926, the cornerstone was laid for the new Town Hall during Old Home Week celebrations. Prime Minister Mackenzie King and Premier Howard Ferguson did the honours.
Earlier in the year, a public vote had been held on whether to proceed with the project. The building required the issuing of debentures of $68,250, which taxpayers would have to repay over 30 years. The public vote was held February 22, 1926: 241 voted for and 10 voted against.
Work began in June of that year. Council held its first meeting in the building on January 11, 1927. (Photo and details from Huntsville: With Spirit and Resolve.)
See more Wayback Wednesday photos here.
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Wow! They agreed they needed it, started to build it and held the first meeting in it, all in 12 months! Today it’s questionable we would get all that through planning in just 1 year.
And all those bricks. I wonder how many, and were any made locally? A few years previous to 1926 it is stated that Mr. Ware at his brickworks would turn out a half million bricks per year. This may have been more than he could produce. And if they were imported, from where?
I always looked at those steps and am reminded of a segment in an old movie. A lad was walking his little sister down an icy street. A man exits a building at the top of just such stairs as those and then does a head-over down the icy steps. He is prone on the sidewalk and the lad walks over and asks, “Could you please do that again sir? My little sister didn’t see it.” Using those steps would render your insurance man speechless today, but for many years, they were the way in and out.
That building was so much more than just a town hall. It was a police station. A lock-up. Where you paid your taxes. And fines ( a few of those myself. Unnecessary noise; speeding; parking violations). Theatre stage, (Mrs. Jean Reynolds remembers school plays performed there.) The armory was there for years. I believe the Sea Cadets held meetings in the building. It was a teen dance hall at times. A library.
And it was a post office until the present one opened in 1955.
In his notes, Mr. S. R. Davis states he took over the job of postmaster from W. Mayhew on June 1, 1941. At that time the mail was picked up and delivered by Mr. Gord Middleton Sr.; from the rail station to the post office and from the post office to the train station. The mail trains south were #46 and #47 while the northbound were #41 and #44.
There must have been a lot of people who spent their working years, or at least a good portion of them, inside that building. It would be interesting to know who holds the record for years spent.