Kinmount Town Hall

By Guy Scott

The Kinmount Town Hall was built sometime in the 1890s on its narrow lot at the corner of the bridge and the Monck Road. It was built to serve as a township office for Somerville Township. Previously council business was conducted in various halls or schools around the township. But the age of the wandering council meetings was over and a permanent site was necessary to store records and allow for staff space. The building also served as a “court house” for minor cases, all heard by a travelling justice of the peace. These local court trials were held quarterly in locations around the county. Two jail cells were built in the basement for “temporary storage” of minor offenders. Kinmount had a designated constable, whose main purpose was to handle “rowdies” from the three hotels in town. The miscreants were locked up in the basement until they sobered up. The jail cells also held persons charged with such crimes as bootlegging, assault, vagrancy, etc. until they could be shipped on to the county jail in Lindsay.

In the early days, township staff consisted of a clerk and a treasurer; who could be the same person as well as a tax collector. All positions were parttime; very part-time! The original council meetings were often held in Burnt River, it being the geographical centre of Somerville Township. But the demand for a permanent site led to Kinmount being the home of township council. It did have more businesses and was a transportation hub that included major roads and the railway. It also had storage space for township records. Besides being the administrative office for the township, the Town Hall also served other functions such as polling booth for elections and meeting room for government sessions. The one room building was never really large enough to hold public meetings. There were plenty of other halls in Kinmount for such purposes. Over the years, the role of township/municipal government grew, and the number of employees crammed into the old Town Hall also expanded. The building was just too small, not to mention the parking issues! So in 1990, the Township of Somerville decided to move to a new site on the cemetery hill just south of town (current site of the Library). The much larger township office contained lots of office space, room for record storage and a new library (previously housed in the basement of the Community Centre now occupied by the Artisans Marketplace). The new Township office operated as such until the Great Amalgamation of 2001.

Today it remains as an (expanded) library and meeting rooms. The old Town Hall, perched precariously along the Burnt River was used for a while as the town swimming hole and a town museum. But the museum never really took off and the swimming hole was moved, leaving the fate of the building uncertain. In the last few years, the City of Kawartha Lakes began to take stock of its physical assets with the view of disposing of surplus buildings. The City already operated the Kinmount Community Centre, the Railway Station and the Library Complex. Clearly the Old Town Hall was not needed. And thus, we have the final chapter to the old Town Hall.

I would like to leave you with two stories about the old Town Hall. It was the scene of Kinmount’s one and only protest march. It occurred in 1982 and related to the closing of Kinmount School. A new site for a consolidated school for Somerville Township was selected in Burnt River. The township council of the day was to vote on the resolution regarding closing Kinmount and moving to Burnt River. The residents of the village gathered at the cenotaph with their signs, and marched down the main street to the bridge to “express” their opposition. The crowd assembled to witness the march far outnumbered the protesters. The whole incident was reminiscent of the annual Kinmount Fair Parade, with noise and blocked traffic. A (very) few protesters “jammed” into the single room. Council got the message. The schools motion was not passed. And the residents of the village had something to talk about in the coffee shop!

The next story related to a council meeting back in the day when Leon Wright was deputy-reeve. The author was present on some forgotten minor business when a delegation of two cottagers from Four Mile Lake went before Council. Their complaint centered around a spring flood. In the days before zoning and official plans, they had built their new cottages beside the lake during the summer. The next spring they found out they occupied a flood plain. They complained the township had granted them a building permit when it should have told them it was a flood plain. Leon asked them if they had noticed any ground hog holes on their lots while building. They replied they hadn’t looked. “Well, he said, at least one animal had the sense not to build on this spot”. It took a while for the complainants to get the drift. Such was how township business was once dispensed. Times have changed!

The City of Kawartha Lakes demolished the old Kinmount Town Hall in November 2018.