Why a Museum at Rutherglen?
We are well placed to explore our local First Nation, Metis, French and English heritage but we also celebrate an early Canadian multi-cultural society in Bonfield Township thanks to the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The Canadian Pacific Railway Company was incorporated on February 16, 1881. At a work camp named "Ruther Glen" a ceremonial First Spike was driven. For on that day previous railroad construction extending from Eastern Canada had come to a halt at Ruther Glen.
Contractually, the new CPR was to meet eastern tracks 8 kms further west at "Callander Station". But in fact, the CPR met Eastern Canadian railbed construction at Ruther Glen.
Today, Callander Station is called Bonfield, Ontario. Bonfield remains the official Eastern Terminus of the CPR construction project which ended in 1886 at Port Moody, British Columbia.
The concept of a transnational “Pacific Railway” was adopted in 1871 as incentive to bring British Columbia into Confederation and ultimately populate Canada from coast to coast. However, Canada's two largest cities both sought the sole economic advantage of becoming the “Gateway” to Western Canada and that put Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald in a politically awkward position.
MacDonald settled on a "neutral Gateway" equidistant from Toronto and Montreal.
Separate “feeder” lines of roughly equal length would connect each city to the Pacific Railway construction project at a geographic location in the wilderness of Upper Canada somewhere to the east of Lake Nipissing. That point was named Callander (later it was changed to Callander Station and today it is the town of Bonfield, Ontario).
On February 15, 1881, Queen Victoria assented to legislation confirming a contract between the Canadian government and the newly formed Canadian Pacific Railway. The CPR was incorporated the following day and assumed responsibility for rail construction west of Callander Station to the Pacific Ocean.
This agreement also specified that Canada Central Railway Co. tracks, recently extended from Brockville and Ottawa in Eastern Canada, were to meet and connect with new CPR tracks at Callander Station. In the contract, Callander Station was given the title “Eastern Terminus” of the westbound CPR construction project.