Urban Archives | "Are We There Yet?" Highway-Based Tourism In Kawartha Lakes

Tourists Enjoy Branson’s Gallery in Rosedale

In 1952, the Lindsay Daily Post ran an editorial which urged every town or hamlet in the municipality to open a small museum or other roadside tourist attraction. […]

A Shell of its Former Self: What Comes Next for Coboconk’s Abandoned Shell Station?

Built not long after the Second World War, this abandoned two-storey wooden Shell gas station stood well into the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Operated by […]

Changing Times: Demolition of a Gas Station, Coboconk

At one time, Coboconk was home to half a dozen gas stations. Due to changes in technology and consolidation among oil companies from the 1970s onward, that number […]

Overgrown Gas Pumps at the Former Shell Gas Station, Coboconk

As many of Ontario’s privately-run gas stations closed during the last quarter of the twentieth century, derelict buildings and overgrown gas pumps became common sights along the highway. […]

Ready to Hit the Road Again With Full Stomachs, Courtesy of Kirkfield’s Alexander Restaurant

The Alexander Restaurant, pictured here in the mid-1950s, was located just west of downtown Kirkfield and served both locals and tourists making their way east and west along […]

Motorists Stop in Downtown Coboconk for a Bite to Eat at the Kawartha Tea Room & Restaurant

The Kawartha Tea Room catered to both locals and tourists travelling through Coboconk on Highway 35 in the 1950s. It sold full-course meals, cheeseburgers and hamburgers, soft drinks, […]

The Kirkfield Inn: “One of the Finest Places of its Kind in Canada”

Funded by Margaret Mackenzie and opened in 1913, the Kirkfield Inn was praised as being “one of the finest places of its kind in Canada, and should prove […]

Coboconk’s Famous Pattie House

The Pattie House had been a fixture in downtown Coboconk for about half a century by the time this photograph was taken during the Great Depression. Apart from […]

Locals Gather at the Campbell House Hotel, Kirkfield

Until the Kirkfield Inn opened on the same site in 1913, the Campbell House Hotel enjoyed a commanding presence in downtown Kirkfield. Distinguished by dichromatic brickwork and symmetrical […]

Margaret Valentine Remembers Her Family’s Service Station

Recorded at the Kirkfield Museum, February 12, 2022 Interviewer: Ian McKechnie Videography: Ekaterine Alexakis Duration: 3:42 Margaret Valentine sitting in front of white wall. Text on screen reads: […]

Pumping Gas at Callan’s Shell Station, Coboconk

The Callan family operated a Shell station in Coboconk at the southwest corner of Highway 35 and Highway 46 (later Highway 48) starting in the 1920s. The original […]

Finding a Place to Park: Automotive Traffic on Nelson Street in Downtown Kirkfield

Highway 46 was known as Nelson Street within the village limits of Kirkfield. By the early 1930s, it was seeing more automotive traffic as cars grew in popularity […]