Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
What an amazing photo! Huntsville’s Main Street certainly has changed through the years. It looks like the entrance to the old movie theatre was from the side? The sidewalks were much narrower but it seems like there were more businesses, especially toward the west. There were also fairly large trees on the Main Street. The cars were pretty neat— especially the colours. What year do you think it was when this photo was taken?
(Photo from www.ontariogenealogy.com.)
See more Wayback Wednesday photos HERE.
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Look!! There is parking on Main Street. Even though, as has been noted, everything going north or south on the then Hwy 11 passed through here. Was the White Rose station still operated by the Paynes? The new Post office stands where the Cottrill Bldg. was and S.R, Davis was still PO manager. The blue Healy (could that have belonged to a school teacher?) is parked in front of the Chamber of Commerce building. Around the corner of the theater was the taxi stand (Snowden), where, about 1958, you could get (sometimes) a free ride if Ernie Reid was going out Brunel Rd.
You can see a pay phone on the SW corner of Main and Center and behind that was….. OMG!!! …..more parking spots. There were a multitude of shops and stalls and stores along Main, and as Martha Briggs noted in her story about the town we grew up in, you could buy what you needed or wanted here. And if it wasn’t on Main someplace, it was just around a corner.
And the cars! They made different colours of paint back in 1958. It wasn’t all black and white and gray and blah. There were coupes, sedans, hard tops: both two and four door and convertibles and even some ‘station wagons’. People may have said they weren’t popular, those wagons, but I tell you they sure could haul a crowd! There was chrome and whitewalls, metal flake and two tones.
And Vernon Vince, if we hadn’t been working or swimming at the Locks or catching crabs to sell to Sy Payne or Tink Kendric, on what appears to be a fine summer day, we may have had plans to see that movie. But the lives and loves of an ancient Persian mathematician might not have been what would ‘float our boat’.
Maybe just go fishing, and later to a lacrosse game.
Its 1957 – the marquis on the theater is advertising Omar Khayyam – which was a 1957 release.
Main Street 1956/1957
First car on left is a four cylinder Austin Healy. In 1957 they changed body style and were 2.6 litre six cylinder cars. I would guess the photo was taken in 1957.
The 2 cars in the right forefront appear to be 1956 Chevrolet cars . So the photo may be 1957 or 1958 .
Back when Main Street was always busy! But with that said, the main highway north came right through Main Street. No four lane then just two lane and through ever little town going north!
The movie was 1957. Must be around the late 50’s.
Big change in main street. For the better???