- Hub staff

The Community Waterfront Heritage Centre (CWHC) decided last year to help Owen Sound celebrate the 100th anniversary of our incorporation as a City in 1920.

It is a great story, and who better to tell it than Richard Thomas, teller of local tales? He was commissioned to make story panels for the Centre's feature exhibit for 2020 – Celebrating a Century.

And then – Covid. For everyone's safety, the Centre's board decided that they would not open for the 2020 season, but that the celebration must go on and the story must be told.

Thomas worked with local software firm KP9 Interactive to create a virtual display which you can enjoy right down at the former CN Rail station on 1st Avenue West. Open your browser on any relatively new cellphone, and let the story come to life. Or check out the videos by choosing Virtual Exhibit 2020 on the Centre's new website.

Learn how we grew prosperous as the northern terminus of the CPR shipping line, and what happened when it moved to Victoria Harbour.

Find out how Town Council decided Owen Sound should become a city, and why the Grey County Council was not a fan at the time. The Montreal Gazette referring to us as “the Baby City”.

Learn about our first year as a city – welcoming a boatload of Detroit businessmen and throwing them a whitefish lunch in Victoria Park. Opening the first motor camp ground in Ontario.

Thomas covers the following 99 years of Owen Sound's life in the last 45-second video, and ends with the question, “What do you think the next hundred years hold for the City of Owen Sound?”

You'll also find the story of our century as a city in the recently released Escape to Grey Bruce magazine (read it here), along with lots of ideas for this year's stay-cation in the area.

When the Owen Sound and North Grey Union Public Library is back open to the public, the display panels themselves will be on view there, and they may travel a little while the Community Waterfront Heritage Centre remains closed.