Depot Harbour, Ontario
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At one time, Depot Harbour, Ontario was the western terminus of the Ottawa, Arnprior & Parry Sound Railway and a busy port on Georgian Bay. J.R. Booth had been unable to negotiate a suitable price with business interests in Parry Sound, Ontario, so, in 1895, he took advantage of legislation that allowed native-owned land to be expropriated for use as a railway to purchase land on Parry Island, the site of an Ojibwa native reserve. It was known as the best natural harbour on the Great Lakes.
Booth built a town site with two large grain elevators, docks, a railway station, a hotel and shops. The town's population reached 1,600 permanent residents in 1926. There may have been as many as 3,000 inhabitants in the summers.
Booth sold his railway to the Grand Trunk Railway in 1904. In 1924, the railway became part of the government-owned Canadian National Railway. Grain prices crashed in the Great Depression years and the portion of the rail line running to Depot Harbour fell into disrepair and was abandoned. The population of the town declined.
During World War II, cordite manufactured in nearby Nobel, Ontario was stored in the town. On August 14, 1945, V-J Day celebrations set off explosives stored near the docks which destroyed most of the harbour facilities. By the 1980s, Depot Harbour had become a ghost town.
The Ojibway reclaimed the expropriated lands in 1987. Little remains of the town except scattered foundations. The bank vault can still be found as well as the loading docks. Only one building remains in use as a cottage.
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