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Difference between revisions of "P. R. Ritcey"
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Image:Kentville Station - CPR No 6799.jpg|[[Kentville Station]], circa 1942 with [[P. R. Ritcey]] store in right background. | Image:Kentville Station - CPR No 6799.jpg|[[Kentville Station]], circa 1942 with [[P. R. Ritcey]] store in right background. | ||
File:Kentville_Railyard_-_1958July.png|Box car unloading at the P. R. Ritcey spur east of the Station, July 1958. | File:Kentville_Railyard_-_1958July.png|Box car unloading at the P. R. Ritcey spur east of the Station, July 1958. | ||
| + | Image:Tupper1.jpg|The Confederation Train parked at Aberdeen Street level crossing, [[Kentville]] with the [[P. R. Ritcey]] Company in centre, 1967. | ||
Image:KentvilleStationh.jpg|Kentville Station, June 1974 with a boxcar unloading at [[P. R. Ritcey]]'s in the background at right. | Image:KentvilleStationh.jpg|Kentville Station, June 1974 with a boxcar unloading at [[P. R. Ritcey]]'s in the background at right. | ||
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File:01350018.JPG|[[DAR9059|No. 9059]] at [[Kentville Station]] on an evening in January 1977 with [[P. R. Ritcey]] store in right background. | File:01350018.JPG|[[DAR9059|No. 9059]] at [[Kentville Station]] on an evening in January 1977 with [[P. R. Ritcey]] store in right background. | ||
File:Ritcey1910.jpg|P.R. Ritcey warehouses looking west to the [[Kentville Station]], circa 1910. | File:Ritcey1910.jpg|P.R. Ritcey warehouses looking west to the [[Kentville Station]], circa 1910. | ||
Revision as of 20:36, 17 July 2017
P. R. Ritcey & Co. Limited was a long-established retail and wholesale business in Kentville located immediately across Aberdeen Street from the Kentville Station. It began in 1871 when Thomas Lewis Dodge started a hardware and furniture business, at first on Main Street but after a fire in 1876, he built a large three-storey store across from the station,[1] one of a wave of businesses that relocated near the station as Kentville's business district grew up around the railway following the completion of the Windsor & Annapolis in 1869. As his sons joined, the firm became the T. L. Dodge & Co. They served as agents for Massey Harris farm machinery and sold a wide array of hardware, paint, furniture and later groceries.[2] The store bought up warehouses along the track to the east and grew along grew Aberdeen street, providing rental space to several other retail businesses such as tailors and restaurants. The firm was later known as the Supply Company and in the 20th century was bought by P. R. Ritcey who turned it into a grocery wholesaler known as P. R. Ritcey & Co Limited. After the collapse of the apple industry Ritcey bought Herbert Oyler's the adjoining brick tile apple warehouse. The firm remained active through the 1970s. The store was demolished in the 1980s, but the old Oyler warehouse was converted to a branch of the Cleve's sporting goods chain until 2013 when the store closed and the building was bought by the adjacent White's Funeral home. The Whites commissioned a large folk art style mural on the warehouse depicting locomotive 2551 pulling into the Kentville Station with a passenger train.
The store and warehouse were served by their own 457 foot long spur (reduced in the 1970s to 363 feet). It ran from an east-facing switch on the north side of the mainline at Mile 56.54 of the Halifax Subdivision. Even after the growth of truck traffic Ritcey continued to receive rail deliveries, 5 to 10 cars a year in the late 1960s.[3] The business location immediately beside the station resulted in the store appearing in the background of many station photographs over the years, often with a box car parked for unloading.
Gallery
Church Street, Kentville, circa 1900 with Kentville Station platforms to right and the T. L. Dodge hardware store to left.
Kentville Station, circa 1942 with P. R. Ritcey store in right background.
Box car unloading at the P. R. Ritcey spur east of the Station, July 1958.
The Confederation Train parked at Aberdeen Street level crossing, Kentville with the P. R. Ritcey Company in centre, 1967.
Kentville Station, June 1974 with a boxcar unloading at P. R. Ritcey's in the background at right.
No. 9059 at Kentville Station on an evening in January 1977 with P. R. Ritcey store in right background.
P.R. Ritcey warehouses looking west to the Kentville Station, circa 1910.
The former Herbert Oyler/P.R. Ritcey warehouse looking west in Kentville, April 2013.
The former Oyler/P.R. Ritcey warehouse with new mural in Kentville, July 15, 2013.
The west end of the former Oyler/P.R. Ritcey warehouse in Kentville, July 15, 2013.
Kentville Freight Shed depicted on new mural on former Oyler/P.R. Ritcey warehouse, Kentville, July 15, 2013.
Locomotive 2551 depicted on new mural on former Oyler/P.R. Ritcey warehouse, Kentville, July 15, 2013.
Kentville Station depicted in new mural on the former Oyler/P.R. Ritcey warehouse in Kentville, July 15, 2013.
Kentville Station depicted in new mural on the former Oyler/P.R. Ritcey warehouse in Kentville, July 15, 2013.
Kentville Station depicted in new mural on the former Oyler/P.R. Ritcey warehouse in Kentville, July 15, 2013.
References and Footnotes
- ↑ Mable Nichols, The Devil's Half Acre (1967), p. 159
- ↑ Louis V. Comeau, Historic Kentville, Nimbus (2003), p. 4
- ↑ 1969 Memorandum of General Information Corporate Info, page 8
