Gravenhurst officials are reaching into the town’s archives once again for another journey into the past.
As part of its 40th Anniversary last year, the Gravenhurst Archives Board kicked off a series of history talks which focused on topics like local sports heroes, prisoner of war camps and main street memories. Chief Librarian Julia Reinhart says the success of these free talks is leading to a new round of events this year.
“The talks we had last year were very popular and we wanted to continue to share the community’s history,” says Reinhart. “This year the Archives have chosen some interesting topics that Judy Humphries, chair of the Archives, has completed in depth research about.”
The first talk, running next Wednesday, will be an encore of the presentation POW Camp 20: Nazi Officers Invade Gravenhurst. The look back at Gravenhurst’s time hosting a Nazi officer prison camp was one of the most popular topics last year says Reinhart.
The free talks will continue throughout the year with one in February, April, July, September and finally November. Each talk runs on Wednesday starting at 7:00pm at the Gravenhurst Library and lasts about 45 minutes, with a chance for questions at the end.
Here is a list of all topics and their dates:
- A Cold Wet Harvest: Harvesting Ice in Gravenhurst, February 13th
- Are We There Yet? Getting to Gravenhurst 1865-1965, April 10th
- What Didn’t Kill You only Made You Stronger: Gravenhurst fights Influenza, Diphtheria, Tuberculosis & Polio, July 10th
- Read’n Writn’ and ‘Rithmetic: Our one room schools and how they grew, September 18th
- Gravenhurst Goes to the Great War: The Impact of War on Our Town & Our People, November 6th