Line on local landmarks
Booklet showcases dated buildings and structures in New Glasgow
Sometimes you walk past history without even realizing it. As New Glasgow Mayor Nancy Dicks leafed through a new booklet edited and compiled by town residents Clyde Macdonald and Philip MacKenzie she was amazed at some of the dates on buildings she had overlooked. “People like myself walk by and probably don’t notice,” she said. While many buildings leave the passersby to guess their age by the architecture or other structural clues, there are some like the ones featured in this book, which proudly boast their date of birth. MacKenzie and Macdonald presented Dicks and New Glasgow Library representative Trecia Schell each with copies of their booklet, which was released on Tuesday. It is called “Some Dated Buildings and Structures in New Glasgow” and true to its name contains 59 coloured photos and brief historical write-ups of dated buildings and structures within the Town of New Glasgow. The project was started by the pair of local historians in 2012 and they’ve worked on it off and on in the five years since, Macdonald said. He said they too often have walked by buildings without realizing they had the dates on cornerstones, but after they started looking for them they found plenty to include in their booklet. Those featured in the booklet include everything from the stone building at 140 George St., which was built in 1813, right up until modern time and the sign in downtown New Glasgow showing Murdock Park was established in 2006. Other dated structures include the watering trough built in 1913 and a bell that once was located on top of the New Glasgow Post Office and Custom House that has a date of 1901 on it. “We thought these dates should be preserved,” Macdonald said. Some of the buildings featured in the booklet have already been razed in the five years that the book has been in the making. These include the former New Glasgow High School and New Glasgow Junior High, which was demolished to make way for New Glasgow Academy. “There were cornerstones on both of them,” Macdonald said. Some of the cornerstones featured are located at the top of the structures. Others were right at ground level. “Philip had to crawl on the ground on his knees to get some of these,” Macdonald said. The pair hope that this booklet will in a small way at least help preserve the history of the Town of New Glasgow for many years to come. Dicks said it was a privilege to receive a copy on behalf of the town. “It’s a real treasure for us to have this,” she said. “It makes you think you should have been more aware of things.”