This page was created by Nathanael Chambers.
Meaning and Time
The nation is nurturing a manufacturing and logging industry with a necessity to transport materials from mines to mills then to the homes of interested citizens. Not to mention that material industry like logging and refined products are catching up to agriculture in terms of workforce.[1] The railroad industry is the cornerstone responsible for the connection of all these products and people. Roundhouses contribute more to the development of a town than you may think. Of course, management is the forefront, but not much attention is brought to the integral components of railroad industry like maintenance, or market changes. Some buildings have meaning that can stretch between borders, and others that connect to a larger, more significant aspects of a nation’s development. This small town of Carleton Place holds several examples of those keys that append a national historical value to a local community. One of which is the Carleton Place’s Roundhouse, currently the Canadian Co-operative Woolgrowers (Canadian Co-operative Wool Growers Limited | Canadian Co-operative Wool Growers Limited) with an extensive history. This building has stood across a time from the creation of the first railway companies in Ontario, to the last, and still present, Canadian Pacific. It even outlives the repurposing campaign that made it the hub of Canadian Wool and removal of the tracks that left the building unused for some time.
[1] Bladen, Marion L. "Construction of Railways in Canada to the Year 1885." Contributions to Canadian Economics 5 (1932): 49.
