It’s Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Pharmasave Huntsville!
This photo of a Huntsville and Lake of Bays Railway steam locomotive was taken in 1950. The railway carried passengers on a 1-1/8-mile track from Peninsula Lake to Lake of Bays, connecting steamship routes on either side. The railway operated from 1904 until 1959, when increased automobile use diminished its profitability. (Photo courtesy of CN Images of Canada Gallery)
Learn more about the railway’s history here: portageflyer.org.
Last week we shared this photo:
This is John Whiteside’s Riverside Lumber Company mill, where Park Drive meets Brunel Road near the high school, likely in the 1890s. The photographer’s perspective is from about where the Jack Bionda Arena is today, looking west. Whiteside’s mill was smaller than that of other lumber companies in town which were on Hunters Bay and had rail access. According to Huntsville: With Spirit and Resolve, Huntsville’s four lumber companies employed 175 men and cut 125,000 to 150,000 feet of lumber each day. Note Cann’s Creek in the foreground. It is now contained within a culvert.
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Hi Brian, it is indeed 1-1/8. Thanks for catching the typo!
Nice picture of locomotive. Just one thing. The route was a little more than a 1/8 mile! If you drive from North to South Portage you will appreciate that 1/8 mile just would not do it. Maybe 1-1/8 miles might and it is just a misprint but even that seems a bit short if you follow the old track bed.
Anyway it was a cool train and if it still existed in the same place doing the same job today it would be world famous, more so even than it is now in it’s present location.