The Community Waterfront Heritage Centre in Owen Sound has unveiled a new digital, interactive exhibit to celebrate the city’s 100th anniversary of incorporating.
Celebrating A Century looks at the development of Owen Sound from a tiny lakefront town, to its boom years as the terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway fleet, and then a period of struggle for the town to reinvent itself after the fleet left in 1912 prior to its incorporation as Ontario’s 24th city in 1920, according to a release from the Waterfront Heritage Centre.
Owen Sound incorporated as a city on June 1, 1920.
Part of the historic virtual exhibit, created and narrated by Owen Sound city councillor Richard Thomas, also details a massive celebration held in the city on Canada Day in 1920, when Billy Bishop flew in the city’s charter and delivered it to then Mayor Roland Patterson.
The Community Waterfront Heritage Centre is currently closed to visitors given the current situation with the pandemic, but it decided to enlist a local software company — Cue KP9 Interactive — to allow for the creation of interactive digital content and videos that can be viewed from outside of the centre using a smartphone or tablet.
There are a number of panels on the windows outside the centre, and people can access the digital content relating to Owen Sound’s history around the time it became a city a century ago.
You can also access the exhibit at the Community Waterfront Heritage Centre website.