It’s Wayback Wednesday, sponsored by Jamie Lockwood, broker/owner of Sutton Group Muskoka Realty!
Do you remember this variety shop which was located at 7 Main Street West? The location had a lot of owners and some very interesting history. The photo was taken sometime between 1980-1990 by Dr. N.E. Hunt among his slides of Huntsville buildings, courtesy of Muskoka Digital Archives.
J. W. Gledhill arrived in Canada from the British Isles in 1879. In 1886 he opened a store at 7 Main Street West. Gledhill was a graduate of the Dominion School of optics and his store carried a full supply of optical goods as well as a wide variety of items ranging from clocks, jewelry, and fancy china to school supplies. Gledhill was a member of Town council for many years and one of the people who promoted an electrical power plant for the town. Once the electrical system was installed, he did the majority of the electrical work himself, stocking electrical fixtures and installing systems in stores, homes, and public buildings. He served for seventeen years as a provincial constable and was instrumental in bringing the Salvation Army to Huntsville. In 1883 he married Miss Orr of New Lowell, Ontario, who died in 1901. He then married Ms. Pink, who carried on the business after Gledhill’s death. In the 1930s Norman Trickey opened a variety store at this location. Trickey’s became a great favorite of schoolchildren. After his death in 1952, the business was carried on by Norman’s daughter Dorothy Sacken. William Billingsley was the next owner of the business. In 1971 it was sold to Frank Booth who sold it in 1987 to Norman and Shirley Parker. In 1994 the building was restored and refurbished as a coffee shop by Catherine Kealey.
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Thank You once again Jamie for a look into the past. Also enjoyed reading about Mr. Billingsly’s ownership of the different variety establishments in town. I used to wholesale farm fresh eggs back when he owned and operated Jack Glennie’s store in North Huntsville. As for Tricky’s we used to walk or bicycle into town from up in Chaffey Twp on hwy 11, then changed to Hwy 11b , now its named Muskoka Rd. 3 North. As a young kid back in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s I also recall all the different candies, but I mostly remember it was the go to place to buy firecrackers ( especially those 4 inchers that would blast a can many feet up in the air), and of course they always had lots of Girly magazines. Lol
Ah, yes! the 70’s.
Ecologic ruin was just a thought for the future. The family station wagon, with it’s Ford 302 could hold about 8 of us.
20 minutes to get to town, (no silly stoplights in those days) A visit to the candy store and then into the movie theater.
Maybe a coffee or hot chocolate on the way home.
Sometimes change is not all it is cracked up to be as a lot of the movies in those days were actually worth watching too.
Regarding: “promoted an electrical power plant for the town. Once the electrical system was installed” Sounds straightforward!
I was fortunate to visit Iqaluit, Nunavut and took in the physical sight/site of their “island” (isolated) electrical power system. They burn diesel fuel in generators and distribute electricity from that building by aerial cable. Very few electric signs, no stoplights, every Kilowatt counts (still much unnecessary night lighting, as everywhere, according to me).
It was fascinating and educational to consider the non-grid system and how we all need our electrical everything. It would be interesting to see a story or photo of the mentioned first electric power plant in Huntsville.
We can add a little more detail to the Billingsley ownership as we, Tim, Kevin and Jana still live in Huntsville. Our brother Scott is deceased.
The purchase of Trickey’s by Bill and Ruth Billingsley (missing is my mom’s name in the article who worked side by side with my dad ) came about one summer day in 1966. My dad filled in for a salesman from George Beck Confections Ltd. (Becks had a Huntsville depot prior to 1963, then closed Huntsville and the office was now out of Orillia. They sold all the penny candy, chocolate bars, gum etc. Everything needed in the little stores and resort tuck shops all over the Huntsville area. ) My dad, covering the area for one of his salesman, stopped into Miss Sacken’s store called Tricky’s to get her order and in conversation it somehow came up she was going to sell the store. Miss Sacken was in a wheelchair at this stage in life and running the store was becoming impossible. A lot of the store was self serve by customers and not working out so my dad said. So on a whim he made a tentative deal with her to purchase the store, finished his route and went home and presented what he had done to my mom (no cell phone or texting in 1966.) The deal went through. My parents were both born and raised in Huntsville so they wanted badly to move home to raise their family. My mom was a Cryderman. They did a whole reno on the inside, enlarging the store and changing the name to The Variety Shop, they ran it as a store with everything from soup to nuts until 1971 when Frank and Shirley Booth (her name missing too, but who ran it side by side with Frank) purchased it. For the first year Dad, Mom and three boys all under 10 years old lived in the small apartment above the store. This store was the first of many small variety stores our parents had in town. The Variety Shop, Variety Mart(formerly The Blue Bell Tea Room now Moccasin Shop, West End Variety, now West End Fish and Chips and Jugg City (formerly Glennie’s Groceteria). In the day they were very busy places. Back then the main stores closed at 6 pm, including grocery stores. All were closed Sundays and some Mondays except during the summer. So you could come to the small stores get a quart of milk and a loaf of bread for 21 cents each from 7 am until 10 pm seven days a week. My parents had the biggest variety of penny candies as (mentions in comment above) and I mean penny candies lol, black balls 3 for 1, pixie sticks 1 for 1 ,jubes 3 for 1, spearmint leaves 2 for 1, and on and on ,twenty five cents was a huge bag full of candy! Those days hold fond memories. Ask any kid raised in town in those days!!!!
Having spent over 60 years in Huntsville, as a cottager, resident, employee, I have many fond memories of Huntsville. Trickeys Variety was one of them.
As a kid spending summers on Fairy Lake, we would make the trip into town by car, then by boat to collect groceries and “The Globe and Mail” which the proprietor of the day would keep aside for us, with my great aunt’s or my grandfather’s name written on the top of the paper. As a kid I thought that was pretty cool.
Later on as we became teenagers the group of us (Kevin, Kip, Dave, myself, to name a few) were allowed to travel to town by boat to watch a movie, we used to go to Trickeys first to load up on the best candy selection in town, then smuggle our stash into the theatre.
Sweet Tarts, Rockets, Pixy Stiks, Macintosh’s, Twizzlers….the selection was endless in those days!
Great times.