Dominion Atlantic Railway Digital Preservation Initiative - Wiki
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Grand Pre Station
Grand Pre Station
Grand Pre had two stations, a small, plain Windsor and Annapolis Railway style station built in 1869 on the south side of the tracks and a unique, rustic log cabin style station built on the north side in 1925 to complement the Grand Pre memorial park.
Windsor & Annapolis Railway Wood Station 1869 - 1925
The first station at Grand Pre was a simple 40' x 22' structure built on the south side of the tracks, one of the medium sized stations built by the Windsor and Annapolis Railway in 1869.[1]
The following information was forwarded to the DARDPI by Heather Watts of the Wolfville Historical Society [2]:
The station master here in the 1870s was Andrew Borden, father of Robert L. Borden, later Prime Minister of Canada. In 1915 when the Prime Minister's mother died in Grand Pre he recorded the following: "On March 26, an alarming telegram reached me; and I left immediately by special train for Grand Pre, arriving in twenty-five-and-a-half hours from Ottawa....my brother Hal and I slept on the private car and early in the morning of March 29, we learned that mother had passed away....."[3]
Gallery
Grand Pre Station, hand tinted.
Grand Pre Station with DAR boxcar.
Grand Pre Station and apple warehouse, unknown date.
Grand Pre Station, with Mrs. Everett Palmeter, apple warehouse in the background, unknown date.
Detail of circuit camera shot of Evangeline statue with the station and warehouses. Note that an operator's bay has been added to station, Aug. 16, 1922.
Both the new (right) and the old (left) stations circa 1925.
Dominion Atlantic Railway Log Station 1925 - Present
The CPR built a log cabin and fieldstone station on the north side of the tracks in 1925 connected by a scenic path to the Grand Pre Park.[4] In the 1930s, Minnie Brooks, who had become one of the first female station masters in Canada at the Avonport Station, was transferred to the Grand Pre Station as station master.[5]
Heather Watt of the Wolfville Historical Society reports that "The Grand Pre station was pulled across the dyke and re-erected on the bluff at Evangeline Beach, where it still stands, as a private cottage."[6] The move appears to have taken place in 1962.[7]
Gallery
Both the new (right) and the old stationsand Grand Pre Water Tower, circa 1925.
Grand Pre Station, circa 1920s.
Grand Pre, 1931 viewed from the south showing the Grand Pre Station, Water Tower and fruit warehouses in the foreground with the memorial park behind.
Grand Pre air view from east with the Grand Pre Station, Water Tower and memorial park with Wolfville in distance, 1931.
Post card made from air view of Grand Pre Station, Grand Pre Water Tower and Grand Pre Park, 1931.
Grand Pre Station looking east with dairy cans and a visiting RCAF airman, 1945.
Locomotive No. 999 pushing a ballast train past the Grand Pre Station, circa 1940s.
Grand Pre Station looking east, ballast train and the Grand Pre Fruit Company Warehouse on right, circa 1940s.
Grand Pre Station looking northwest, circa 1940s.
Grand Pre Station, August 10, 1956.
Grand Pre Station, August 27, 1956.
Locomotive No. 1046 with an eastbound freight passing the Grand Pre Station and apple warehouses, 1950.
DAR No. 1046 stops at Grand Pre Station on October 8, 1956. One of the crew is at the base of the water tower.
Grand Pre Station, west end, photographed by Harold Jenkins, July 1958.
Grand Pre Station, east end, photographed by Harold Jenkins, July 1958.
Grand Pre Station, just before removal to Evangeline Beach, 1961.
References and Footnotes
- ↑ Windsor and Annapolis Railway, Report of Alexander MacNab, C. E., November 1, 1873. pages 14, 21
- ↑ Wolfville Historical Society
- ↑ Robert Laird Borden: His Memoirs, Vol. I, McClelland & Stewart, 1969)
- ↑ Marguerite Woodworth, History of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, page 66
- ↑ Gordon Haliburton, Horton Point: A History of Avonport, 1998, page 118
- ↑ Wolfville Historical Society
- ↑ A photo of Grand Pre in 1962 shows the newly open, empty basement indicating that the station had just been moved. Gary W. Ness, The Dominion Atlantic Railway: 1894-1994, page 124.
