PAGE 10,WEDNESDAY, MAY 30e1979, WHITBY HBrian Winteri Historic"ai Whitby w I MYRTLE STATION In Western Canada in the 1880's, towns and villages were created almost overnight as the Canadian Pacific Railway was built across the Praries. Much the same thing happened in the creation of Myrtle Station, less than a mile north of the old established village of Myrtle. Myrtle was established at the corner of Highway 12 and the9th concession of Whitby Township as early as the 1840s, and wa,s originally called Wells Corners, after the Wells family which settled there. It was later called Lenwood before it took its present name of Myrtle. Myrtle first had a railway station east of the village when the "In my heart I pitted the poor beast but was powerless to help it. It was doing an important work for humanity and doing its level best, and receiving in turn the gibes and jeers of that very humanity, in addition to the scanty pittance of food required to keep-body and soul together-I was going to say..." REE PRESS "Nip and Tuck" railway passed by the community in 1871 on the way to Port Perry and Lindsay from' Whitby, but by the 1940s this station was gone. The more well-remembered station at Myrtle Station stood from 1884 to 1974, a period of 90 years, and was replaced with a small glass shelter for cômrnuters a few years ago. Myrtle Station owed its existenceto the Ontario and Quebec Railway which was built through the Township of Whitby, north of Myrtle in the winter of 1884. This railway later became part of the Canadian Pacific Railway system. The following is an on-the-spot report of the building of the Ontario and Quebec Railway, written by Ross Johnston, a traveller for the Whitby Chronicle, on Feb. 25, 1884. "Well here I am at the road bed on the site of the new station. The building material is mainly on the ground, lying about in piles here and.there, as is also the material for the immense tank, the water for which is being brought in underground pipes from Mud Lake, half a mile or more north. "I am told the water has a fall of 66 feet in that distance. Malcolm McTaggart Esq. has the contract for cutting the water way and laying the pipes, and a big job it is. It was nearly completed at the time of my visit. . "Leaving the site of the station, I proceeded westward along the road-bed, the cutting for which commences just about the intersection of the road-bed with the gravel road (Highway 12), a little west of the station. "Unless due precautions are taken, this point will be one of the great danger to passing trains. The natural outlook for a coming train is so limited and the difficulty of getting out of the way so great that without safeguards of a very reliable kind, accidents will be almost inevitable. It will be well for the public to see in time to their own protection, as it is now pretty generally understood that the public have no rights that railroad companies are bound to respect. "Going westward the cut increases in depth until the intersection with the Midland ("Nip and Tuck") is reached at which point the .depth is said to be 26 feet. Beyond the intersection the depth rapidly lessens and as you go westward the cutting seems turned upside down and becomes an embankment running through a deep and long ravine. The work seems immense when closely examined. "The tough blue clay looks almost as difficult to manage with pick and shovel as if it were so·much gutta percha. A huge pile of this material immediately below the rails of the Midland was still awaiting removal at the tine of my visit, but a sufficient space on each side was eut throught to allow of building the bridge, the foundation of which was in course of erection and is composed of immense blocks of blue stone brought out on the Midland from Bobcaygeon. "Quite a number of Italians were engaged on the works, and seemed to be doing their part very efficiently notwithstanding the severity of the weather and the unpleasant nature of the work. "The large blocks of stone were being raised to the proper height by the aid of a derrick worked by a rat-tailed scraggy looking old rack of bones of a horse that might have been taken for the ghost of Rosinante, the famous seed of Don Quixote, on the back of which he made the noted attack on the windmills. t oFree Press Photo -NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC WITH.EVERY DOUBLE ROLL OR BOLT OF' WALLPAPER PURCHASED IN A BEAUTIFUL SE¯LECTED VARIlETY, SELLING AT OUR LOW, LOW DISCOUNT PRICE OF $6°° AND '8"' A DOUBLE ROLL OR BOLT, YOU WILL RECEIVE A 1 FREE SILVER DOLLAR: (RECENT CAINADIAN MINT ISSUE NICKEL) THE WALLPAPER CENTRE• OSHAWA AJAX 140 SIMCOE SI. S. 1331 HARWOOD AVE. N (AT THE CORNER OF JOHN) (JUST N. OF HWY. 401) TEL. 579-1655 TEL. 686-0719 ALSO IN SCARBORO A T 553 MARKHAM RD. 431-4458 COOL WATER FOR SUMMER Whitby Recreation Director Wayne DeVeau admires a new water fountain in Centennial Park, which is part of the new developments for the park, installed by the Whitby Rotary Club. The official opening of the park is planned for June 23 at 1:30 p.m., and it will be known from now on as "Rotary Centennial Park". The fountain is part of a splash area for children which will be enjoyed on hot summer days.