Learn about Waterloo from farmers’ plots to restaurant pots
Waterloo Public Library to host walking tour of food history in uptown core next month
WATERLOO — You can savour more than 200 years of local food history in uptown Waterloo in just 90 minutes on a walking tour hosted by the Waterloo Public Library.
Janet Seally, manager of local history at the library, will take walkers on a tour that explores the farms, mills, general stores, bakeries and butchers, inns and early restaurants that helped shape the food culture of the city’s core. It’s a free event and no registration is required.
“I’ll be looking at everything from how the uptown area was mostly farms, starting with Abe Erb’s mill, to looking at home gardening and home cooking, to where people ate out before there were any restaurants,” said Seally.
The walk, From Farmers’ Plot to Restaurant Pot, is scheduled for Aug. 4 at 11 a.m. rain or shine. It begins at the library main branch, 35 Albert St., which Seally said was the site of the city’s third farmers’ market from the 1930s to 1965, the year before the current main branch was built and opened its doors.
It’s the third such walking tour Seally has offered after two successful outings in 2017 that had nearly 40 people per tour. The walks were organized to help celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday. The topics were the history of transportation in Waterloo and the history of Waterloo Park.
“They were really popular and I enjoyed doing them, so I thought it would be fun to look at food in the area — from the past up to the present,” she said.
The story of food in Waterloo starts at about 1816, when village founder Abraham Erb opened the first grist mill for local farmers. The mill used water from a nearby beaver pond (now Silver Lake) to power an 5.5-metre mill wheel.
Erb had a large fireplace built so the men would have had a place to warm themselves and chat with other farmers. A dirt trail soon became Erb’s Road — now Erb Street — and was formed during those early years to help farmers bring their wheat to the mill.
But Seally plans to go even further back in time than that, and will briefly discuss the food and agricultural techniques of the First Nations who lived on the land before the arrival of Europeans. What was formerly known as “Indian lands” later became known as Block 2, then Waterloo Township, and covered about 60,000 acres.
From there, Seally’s tour will discuss early farms in and around the modern uptown area, like the Eby Farm in what is now Waterloo Park.
The land was owned by Jacob Eby until Sept. 1, 1890 when the Village of Waterloo acquired the 65-acre farm to create its first park. Originally named West Side Park, it contained the Eby farmhouse and orchard.
The walk will also include stops at the Ontario Seed Co. store on King Street to discuss home gardening methods and home cooking, and how the townspeople banded together during times of hardship, such as the Great Depression in the 1930s, to share food and other goods.
Seally will also discuss early restaurants in the city, including Harmony Lunch and Angie’s, and the earliest inns and taverns, like the Huether Hotel, that predated the traditional restaurant and served as refuges for weary travellers.
The overall goal is to help people better understand and appreciate the city’s history.
“Last year, the ultimate compliment I had from one man during the transportation walk was, ‘Well, I thought I knew everything about Waterloo,’ ” Seally said.
More information is available on the library website, www.wpl.ca.