Historic Public Buildings in Meaford

 I've only been able to think of three public buildings in Meaford that are particularly historic, Meaford Hall, Station 87, and the museum.  There has been considerable restoration of each of these buildings in recent memory, most recently the remarkable transformation of fire hall, Station 87, into a popular restaurant..

Meaford Hall is actually the old town hall, but now it has been renovated to include meeting rooms, an elevator, and  a conert hall.  The new main entrance is at what would have been the back, but it works.  It's a great community resource. 

This is the Tidbits plaque for the building.  Reading this QR code with your smartphone's camera will taake you to much more information.

 The old fire hall, complete with tower where the hoses were hung to dry, has been transformed into a popular restaurant.  The 'Station 87' name is the original fire hall number.  At the time, all fire halls in Ontario were given a number.  The tower also had a bell that would call the volunteer firefighters to the station in case of fire.  Meaford's fire department is still mostly volunteers.

This is the plaque for the fire hall.  It takes you to a website with plenty of detailed information about  fires and fire-fighting.  

The plaque wasn't very close to the sidewalk though, so of limited use to a wheelchair user, except that I used my camera to zoom in.

This is the local museum, crowded with artifacts and displays.  In its original life it was the pumphouse for the town's water supply, built in 1885.

And here is the Tidbits plaque.  If you compare them you can see the building was expanded when it became the museum.  The original pumphouse was built in 1885, and an auxillary electric pump added in 1924.  The Public Utilities Department relocated to the building in the 1930s, but it was vacated in the 1940s, and sat vacant for some years.  

In 1960 the world traveller C.R. Sing donated part of his extensive collection, on the basis that it would be used to start a museum.  With that starting point the Power House was converted to a museum the following year.  It's well worth stopping by to see.