Pieces of the Past

An announcement in the Milverton Sun on Nov. 6, 1919 called on members of the Great War Veterans Association to don their uniforms once more and gather to honour the memory of one of their younger members.

Though Halloween has passed, we hope you had more treats than tricks.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Well, maybe not lions and tigers, but early European settlers had encounters with other kinds of the abundant wildlife in Perth County.

The first Kirkton Union School was built of logs and opened in 1856. It was located on Part Lot 6, West Boundary, Blanshard Township, with an addition in 1925 of Part Lot 7 that was used as a playground. It encompassed both S.S. No. 11 Blanshard and S.S. No. 8 Usborne and sat on the northern limits

Before the invention of radio, television and the internet, people would travel to towns and cities to do recitations for the residents of the area. They would read from authors such as Dickens and Shakespeare. A number of them came through Perth County in the mid-to-late 1800s and into the turn of

Thanksgiving is almost upon us. From the online Canadian Encyclopedia, we learn that the First Nations celebrated the fall harvest in what is now called North America long before European settlers.

The Stratford Normal School, a training college for teachers, formally opened its new building overlooking the Avon River in January 1909. Students from around Perth County and beyond had been attending classes since the previous fall.

As we make our way into the cooler autumn weather and watch the leaves on the trees change colours, let’s take a trip back 101 years ago to the 1922 Listowel Fall Fair.

The Stratford Beacon Herald covered all three days of the 1951 Stratford Fall Fair, which was known for many “firsts” that year.

In December 1898, the Stratford Herald published a Souvenir Trade Edition. This issue contained articles regarding various businesses around Stratford. One of the articles advertised Wettlaufer Brothers Limited.

According to National Geographic, “an earthquake is caused by the movement of parts of the Earth’s crust, its outermost layer. They happen millions of times a year, but most are so small people don’t even feel them.”

Female entrepreneurs set up shop across Perth County in its early years. Independent women knew that ingenuity and hard work would result in, if not wealth, at least a comfortable life.

In the summer of 1953, Perth County celebrated one hundred years of existence as an independent municipality. In the days leading up to a grand anniversary party, the Stratford newspaper traced the county’s history back to the 1820s when the Canada Company hacked a road through the Huron Tract and b

On July 22, 1885, the former Town of Stratford hosted a grand gala day to celebrate its new status as a city. The programme – preserved as part of the city’s records at Stratford-Perth Archives – boasted of $2,000 in prizes and entertainment.