Durham is a community in the municipality of West Grey, Grey County, Ontario, Canada. Durham is located near the base of the Bruce Peninsula.
Location
Durham, Ontario is 44 kilometers South of Owen Sound and 65 kilometers North of Guelph on Ontario Highway 6. The middle of the town is the intersection of Highway 6 and Grey Road 4. Durham is approximately 18 kilometers East of Hanover.
The population of Durham has stayed steady at roughly 2500 people over the past decade. This compares to neighbour Hanover which has grown from 6400 to 8200 people in the past decade.
Durham is built around the Saugeen River and has three manmade dams. These dams have suffered at least two major floods, once in 1929 when the dam broke and again in 1997 due to ice blockage. Durham also used to be the center of the livestock exchange for the surrounding Grey and Bruce counties, which it lays close to the border of. On the outskirts of Durham, there are several small communities, such as Varney, Dornoch, Aberdeen, Allan Park, Priceville and Holstein.
Foundations of Durham
Founded on May 1, 1842 by Archibald Hunter, a Scottish traveller, Durham became one of the first ever self-sustaining communities in Canada through the flour and saw mills of an Irishman named John Edge, founded in the 1840s. Those mills were purchased by Robert McGowan in 1888, hence the Durham landmark McGowan Falls on the Saugeen River. Durham now has two major companies for employment: Durham Furniture and Interforest. Durham Furniture is a company that specializes in stained and whitewashed bedroom furniture and employs slightly more than 200 people. Interforest is a multinational corporation that deals with the treatment and production of lumber.
Durham has its own hospital with limited emergency facilities, although it was once a full blown community hospital equipped to handle most situations. The town is patrolled by the municipality's West Grey Police, and the town does have its own police station. Also, Durham has its own volunteer firefighter service and station. The town has its own Canada Post building, as well as a town hall. The town also has a Conservation Area with camp sites that are very popular during the summertime and help expand local business.
Community centres
Durham presently has two schools: Spruce Ridge Community School and St. Peter and St. Paul's Catholic School. Spruce Ridge is the result of the amalgamation of the Saugeen Valley Community School and Durham District Community School. Durham District used to be the town's high school until the 1970s when it amalgamated with Hanover's high school to form John Diefenbaker Secondary School. Students that graduate from SRCS generally attend Grey Highlands Secondary School in Flesherton or JDSS in Hanover. Durham has an arena that can hold 3000 people and also has an art gallery. The town hosts an annual fall fair that attracts many visitors. There is a public library and a couple of small bookshops. Durham is the home of Branch 308 of the Royal Canadian Legion and multiple churches for the variety of denominations. The Durham Agricultural Society was founded in 1858. The Durham Loyal Orange Lodge has existed in Durham since the 1850s. The Durham Horticultural Society dates back to at least 1896. Durham's Masonic Lodge was chartered in 1873. Girl Guides have been presented since two years after its Canadian founding, 1912. The first Rotary Club meeting held in Durham was on February 17, 1938. The Kinsmen Club was founded May 30, 1950 and the Kinette Club was founded March 28, 1957. Boy Scouts in Durham date back to the 1920s. The Durham & District Optimist Club was chartered June 14, 1988.
As of the town census in 1861, Durham had 4 churches: the Free Church (Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Free Church of Scotland), the Church of England, the Wesleyan Methodist, and the Baptist Church. Durham has always had a cornucopia of churches, even to this day the town is scattered with beautiful old buildings of faith. The Durham Baptist Church was founded by Reverend Alexander Stewart, and dates back to the mid-19th century. In 1902, the frame of the church was moved and a new large red brick church was built as its replacement. This building is detailed with beautiful stained glass windows. The Durham Foursquare Gospel Church was founded in 1929 in a tent. A year later, in 1930, the Church took up permanent residence on the town's main street. The Presbyterian Church was founded in the early 1850s as the "Free Church". They were granted 10 acres (40,000 m 2 ) of land by the Crown in 1852. In 1925, the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational faiths were combined to form the United Church. In Durham, only some Presbyterian and Methodist Churches followed this order, but the merger did lead to the formation of the Knox United Church on top of the Durham Hill; the congregation was joined by the former Methodists who had met in town since 1849. The Methodists also had earlier met at Ebenezer Church, about a mile west of Durham. A minority of the Presbyterians (Feb. 1 1925 vote was 218-165) wished to remain with the continuing Presbyterians, and the present Durham Presbyterian Church was opened in 1927. The Methodist Church was erected in the mid-1860s. The first Anglican service happened in 1849. This service was held in the home of one of the Edge or Hopkins families. Services were held in family homes by a tracelling minister from Owen Sound until the ] Anglican Church was built in Durham (1861?). It burned down in 1876 and was rebuilt in 1877. The structure still stands there today despite multiple lightning strikes. Catholic services in Durham date back to 1852, the first being held by Jesuit Missionary Reverend Casper Matoga. The first Catholic Church was built in Durham 1867 but was burnt down by an arsonist on July 4, 1870. A second Catholic Church was purchased for $900 in 1892. The Church's main hall, known at St. Andrew's Hall was used as their place of worship until the 1940s. In 1940, St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church was created on top of the Durham Hill, right beside the St. Peter and St. Paul's Catholic School. The Fellowship Baptist Church was founded in 1990. There is also a Jehovah's Witness Church to the West of Durham on Grey Road 4.
Population and demographics
The following information is a product of a Statistics Canada Report. 2
Sports in Durham
During the 1850s and 1860s Durham athletes constantly travelled to neighboring towns like Mount Forest to compete in Curling matches during the winter and Cricket matches during the hot Southern Ontario summers. The local Cricket league in the 1860s included, with Durham and Mount Forest, Owen Sound, Chesley, Walkerton, and Listowel. In 1882, Harriston and Dundalk joined the local league. For 40 years, Durham maintained a Junior, Senior, and School league team. By the 1910s, Cricket dropped in popularity and was no longer consistently played by the people of Durham. Soccer, then known as Football, became popular in the late 1870s but was replaced by Lacrosse in the 1890s. The Town of Durham enjoyed sports so much that at the turn of the 19th century, Durham used to dedicate 3 days per year to day-long displays of athletics. These days usually involved Soccer, Lacrosse, Cricket, and Baseball games, from Dawn until Dusk, to be played for the townspeople.
In 1908, the first ever indoor ice arena was built by Thomas Brown to facilitate the towns growing fascination with the sport of Hockey. At least two outdoor arenas had been built in recent years, but this was meant to be a permanent replacement. The first hockey game was played in the arena on January 1, 1909. A new arena was built in 1952 through fundraising by the Kinsman Club, the Rotary Club, and Branch 308 of the Royal Canadian Legion. Hap McGirr was the Guardian of this arena until 1974. This arena was condemned in 1975 and the current complex finished construction in 1977.
Durham considers itself a hockey town, and for the most-part it is true. Hockey is the most popular pastime and normally draws over 250 children and teens into its Minor Hockey system. Durham has won a number of All-Ontario Championships. The town's parent club under minor hockey guidelines is the Grey-Bruce Highlanders AAA Hockey Team. Durham hockey was first organized in the early 1900s by Frank Irwin and Peter Gagnon. Erben Schutz and Martin Lauder found early success through Durham hockey, playing in the 1920s for the NHL's Boston Bruins. The town won its first major hockey award in the 1930-31 season as one of the precursors to the Durham Huskies won the Junior Northern Hockey League. Durham's first Ontario Hockey Association Senior championship happened in 1935-36, won by another precursor to the Durham Huskies. In fact, the Huskies (before they were called the Huskies) were 3 different hockey teams: a Junior team, an Intermediate team, and a Senior team. By 1952, the year the team was named there was only an Intermediate team, but they were quite dominant in their league. Intermediate hockey eventually became known as Senior "AA". The Se
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