125 YEARS AGO Thursday, February 26, 1885

• Mr. A. V. Galbraith has been appointed agent in Shelburne for the Bell Telephone Co. A goodly number of subscribers have already been secured and we understand that the businessmen in Orangeville are also moving creditably in the matter. The company expects to connect Toronto and Owen Sound in a short time, We are informed that Dr. Norton has offered to contribute $75 toward extending the line to Horning’s Mills. Whether this offer will be accepted or not we cannot say, but if the people of Horning’s Mills will also materially assist, there is no reason why the connection should not be made.

• The Shelburne Benedicts’ Ball was a grand success. When the financial committee came to settle up they found there was a surplus of $25 in the treasury. The bachelors reported they had a like amount and were at a loss what to do with it. Someone proposed that they should put their piles together and have a big feed, but after some little discussion it was decided to distribute the whole amount among the deserving poor of the village.

100 YEARS AGO Thursday, February 24, 1910

• Writes Editor T. F. E. Claridge in the Shelburne ECONOMIST: A matter that should receive the immediate attention of our town council is the changing of the floor of the auditorium of our town hall to slant properly from stage to rear so that an equally good view of the stage can be had from all parts of the hall. The entrance to the auditorium is not at the right place, but that is a matter that is not very easy to remedy. It would be a comparatively easy matter, however, to remedy the floor trouble. As it is now, a seat any place but in the “elevated” or among the first rows at the front is only a delusion, a snare, an aggravation to profanity, a neck-stretcher, a thing wherein he who sits may hear but see not, an exasperation, a despair. It seems like highway robbery to accept good money for some of those seats. The present state of affairs isn’t fair to the concert-goer. Neither is it fair to those who engage the hall for entertainment purposes, for those centre seats provide a hoodoo for pretty nearly every entertainment that is held in the place.

• At its meeting Thursday last, Shelburne Council passed a motion appointing Dr. Thos. Babe, Geo. Ireland and John A. Skelding as a committee to get options on property for a new station, to be submitted to the C.P.R., and that the Clerk be instructed to write Mr. James Cassie, C.P.R. agent, expressing their approval of the proposed location.

• At a meeting of the Orangeville Public School Board Tuesday of last week, the trustees had quite a time selecting a principal to succeed Mr. Wilson, whose resignation was accepted the previous Friday night. There were about a dozen applications for the position, and the board had quite a time making the selection. The choice finally fell to Alexander Firth of Lloydtown, and the salary was fixed at $900.

• At the time of going to press Wednesday afternoon, things look promising for a blockade on the railway. The morning train from Owen Sound didn’t reach Shelburne until after dinner and the morning train from Toronto was cancelled. There is no snow plough north of Orangeville and a freight train is stalled north of Melancthon Station. The wind is blowing the snow into the cuts and it really begins to look too much like old times for comfort.

75 YEARS AGO Wednesday, February 28, 1935

• For the first time since 1931, Shelburne is the scene this week of a curling bonspiel. On Tuesday, 16 rinks were on hand using three sheets of ice in the curling rink and three in the skating rink.

50 YEARS AGO Wednesday, February 24, 1960

• Geraldine Staveley was elected president of Dufferin County Junior Farmers at their annual meeting, held in Mono Centre hall last Wednesday night.

• Dufferin fared fairly well in the storm that struck Ontario last Friday afternoon and night. Rural roads were filled and highways were in hazardous condition for a spell, but the real trouble centred to the east, in Barrie and south of there. Highway 400 was in bad shape, and two Camp Borden men, stalled in their car amid deep drifts on the road between Highway 400 and Cookstown, died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

25 YEARS AGO Wednesday, February 27, 1985

• A 14-year-old Orangeville boy, charged in the strangulation murders of Monique and Daniel Babineau last November, admitted to the slayings in a statement to police the night of his arrest, an Orangeville court was told Tuesday. The trial of the accused, whose identity is prohibited from publication, began Tuesday in Young Offenders Court. In his opening remarks, Crown Attorney Anthony Williams told Judge Ross Webster he intended to prove the youth was guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.