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2017 Orillia Museum of Art & History Award, Historical Publications and/or Research — Winner
The history of Orillia, told through the stories of its people, bringing to life the community’s heritage and significance.
The Orillia Spirit:
The history of Orillia, told through the stories of its people, bringing to life the community’s heritage and significance.
The Orillia Spirit:
- Muddling through Canada’s first, and hilarious, experiment with daylight savings time, Mayor “Daylight Bill” Frost had it.
- Creating his own money and dreaming a drainage ditch would become a tourist attraction, Mayor Ben Johnson had it.
- Taking his town’s electric company by force, Mayor J.B. Tudhope had it.
- Inventing early forms of medicare and the first RVs, dreaming of universities and folk festivals, battling for decades over liquor and rinks, ordinary people had it.
Price: $30.00
Pages: 192
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Imprint: Dundurn Press
Publication Date:
01 August 2017
Trim Size: 7.00 X 10.00 in
ISBN: 9781459739604
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
HISTORY / Canada / General, History of the Americas, HISTORY / Social History, PHOTOGRAPHY / Subjects & Themes / Historical, Social & cultural history, Photographs: collections
How locally-generated power changed our community from a sleepy lumber village to a thriving industrial centre is an engrossing read — as entertaining as it is enlightening — in Randy Richmond’s The Orillia Spirit.
Randy Richmond is an award-winning journalist living in London, Ontario. He is the former editor of The Packet & Times in Orillia, where he wrote the first Orillia Spirit, married, and had three children. He is the coauthor of Colossal Canadian Failures 1 and 2, also published by Dundurn Press.
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Chapter One: A Meeting
What’s in a Name? In Orillia, Confusion
A Forgotten Village
Chapter Two: An Inevitable Clash
From Hotel to Asylum
“The trees, I never saw the likes of them.”
Chapter Three: The Lumber Boom
Canada’s First Medical Plan
The Dry Days Begin
The Finest Position in the Dominion
Churches
Steaming into Legend
Chapter Four: The Orillia Spirit
A Motoring Adventure
A Monument to the Past
A Fairy-Tale Ending
Chapter Five: King Ben
Chasing Rum-Runners and Nazis
Chapter Six: Anything Was Possible
A Leacockian Tale
The Centre a Community Built
Chapter Seven: Some Dreams Just Won’t Die
The Long Wait for a Drink
Chapter Eight: Big City Dreams, Small Town Reality
A Smaller Dream
Chapter Nine: The Spirit Returns
Chapter Ten: Haunting Dreams
And the Spirit Looks Like What?
Sources
Foreword
Chapter One: A Meeting
What’s in a Name? In Orillia, Confusion
A Forgotten Village
Chapter Two: An Inevitable Clash
From Hotel to Asylum
“The trees, I never saw the likes of them.”
Chapter Three: The Lumber Boom
Canada’s First Medical Plan
The Dry Days Begin
The Finest Position in the Dominion
Churches
Steaming into Legend
Chapter Four: The Orillia Spirit
A Motoring Adventure
A Monument to the Past
A Fairy-Tale Ending
Chapter Five: King Ben
Chasing Rum-Runners and Nazis
Chapter Six: Anything Was Possible
A Leacockian Tale
The Centre a Community Built
Chapter Seven: Some Dreams Just Won’t Die
The Long Wait for a Drink
Chapter Eight: Big City Dreams, Small Town Reality
A Smaller Dream
Chapter Nine: The Spirit Returns
Chapter Ten: Haunting Dreams
And the Spirit Looks Like What?
Sources