Glenn Higgins – History Buff

I hear you’re something of a local historian, what’s your favourite aspect of Orillia’s history?

Well, I started when I first came to town and I was an industrial-based person through my schooling, and so the industrial history in Orillia is for me a great interest. There’s many, many firsts in Orillia, they made ships vessels for the war, they made landing gear for mosquito aircraft in the war at one of the factories. There’ve been many firsts in Orillia, so that’s kind of what drew me to the historical part.

Then it led into Orillia Heritage Centre who was involved in that industrial past and they purchased Orillia’s first gas-powered fire truck. That was something that I got involved with and that’s, for me, a big driver. I’m one of the crew that helps keep it running, it’s stored in our Station 1 headquarters and it’s here for people to tour. The kids can climb on it and goes in parades, and takes the mayor on parade, so for me that’s a big piece of history in Orillia.