Entrepreneur Herb Marshall stands in front of the station - Date unknown Pat Brennan.

14 October 2013

Relocated Train Station is the Latest Attraction in Canada's Prettiest Town

Goderich Ontario - It claims to be the prettiest town in Canada, even after a killer tornado tore through its heart two years ago, but local entrepreneur Herb Marshall felt Goderich needed a new tourist attraction.
 
So, he spent $1.8 million to pick up an abandoned, 106-year-old railway station and move it to the edge of Lake Huron to convert it to a destination restaurant and future convention centre.
 
The red brick CP rail station near Goderich's industrial harbour is one of Ontario's most attractive train stations. The last train pulled away from its passenger platform in April 1988.
 
Marshall paid Goderich $1 for the historic station, which he says was dying from neglect. He hired Laurie McCulloch's building moving firm in Whitby to safely move the 400-ton station with triple brick walls 250 metres to the edge of Lake Huron and one of Goderich's most popular beaches.
 
Huge freighters visiting Goderich harbour to load salt, wheat, and soya beans pass close to the station/restaurant.
 
It'll be called Beach Street Station when it opens for business next May, said Marshall.
 
He already owns one of Goderich's most popular restaurants. He and his wife Sherri often visited Goderich from Toronto looking for an opportunity to relocate. In 2006 they purchased the historic Park House Restaurant at the top of a steep bluff overlooking Goderich harbour and its beaches.
 
Park House was built in 1830 and is one of the oldest buildings in Ontario. It was the lavish home of Thomas Mercer Jones, the first commissioner of the Canada Company, which established The Port of Goderich in 1826.
 
The home, which featured 10 separate fire places, some trimmed with Italian marble, was eventually sold by the Canada Company to be a railway hotel. It's now a popular restaurant pub and the Marshalls live on the upper floors.
 
Their back yard offers one of the town's best viewing sites for Goderich's famous sunsets. The locals love to claim that National Geographic Magazine listed Goderich, a town of 7,500, as having the second best sunsets known to them, but nobody seems to have a copy of that edition.
 
Still, the sunsets are spectacular. Plus, they have two each evening... if you're fast.
 
You can watch a sunset from the beach until the sun disappears, then race to the top of the bluffs and see the sun set again. Most people do it by car, but fit citizens, like John Smallwood, run up the bluffs via a long, steep, plank staircase.
 
Marshall was in his upper floor residence on 21 Aug 2011 when he saw a waterspout forming out on Lake Huron and moving inland. The Force 3 tornado did more than $650 million in damage, injured 35 people, and killed 61-year-old Norman Laberge who was loading salt into a freighter.
 
The town has had an impressive rebound from the storm to still claim the title as Canada's prettiest town. It was Queen Victoria who called Goderich the prettiest town in Canada, although she was never here.
 
The locals call it Circle City because their main street is an octagonal circle with streets running off in all directions like spokes of a wheel.
 
The Huron County courthouse stands in the middle of the wheel, called The Square. Steven Truscott was 14 when he was sentenced in this courthouse to be executed by hanging for the death of his schoolmate Lynn Harper. Truscott's sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. In 2007 his conviction was declared a miscarriage of justice and he was acquitted of the charge.
 
You can go sit in Truscott's jail cell at the historic Goderich Gaol. It's so old it's called a gaol. It operated as the county's principal lockup from 1842 to 1972. Today the Octagonal stone gaol is a National Historic Site and hosts a weekly farmers' market.
 
Another townsite, even larger than Goderich, is an immediate neighbour, but you can't see it. The world's largest salt mine is located 1,800 feet below the bottom of Lake Huron just off Goderich. It has more than 200 miles of roadway wider than Toronto's Yonge Street, plus a large crushing factory and a repair station for the massive off-road trucks that carry salt to the crushing plant.
 
Lake freighters 732 feet long arrive regularly to carry salt off to Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River communities to be spread on winter's slippery roads and highways. Table salt also comes from Goderich. Water is pumped down a pipe and returns as salt water, which is then boiled down to pure salt.
 
If you're reading this article while sitting in a cold arena watching kids chase a puck around, you can blame Goderich. Hockey dads in this town organized the world's first minor hockey tournament, called Young Canada Week, 64 years ago.
 
Pat Brennan.

Vancouver Island
British Columbia
Canada