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Out on the edge
Take a drive sometime, if you’re not ordinarily accustomed to taking that route, along the Uxbridge-Pickering Town Line, between Brock Road and the York-Durham Line. It lies just north of Claremont, if you go in from the east, and there are some pretty interesting buildings along the way. Most of them, like Toad Hall or the old Stouffville Christian School, or the Mennonite Meeting House where the founder of Stouffville, Abe Stouffer, is buried, lie on the southern, or Pickering, side of the road.
But a couple are in Uxbridge. One which we wish we knew a few stories about is in the extreme southwestern corner of the Township, an old garage that says “Eckhardt’s Corners” on it. Who was Eckhardt? Was there once more of a settlement at the Corners? We must investigate that sometime.
But the building we’re concerned about today lies a full concession east of the garage, and is undoubtedly several decades older - the Altona Inn. It’s across the street from Abe Stouffer’s meeting house, it was once a bustling hostelry on the main route from Stouffville to points east, and it now has the great misfortune to lie in the midst of the accursed “Pickering Airport Lands”, those hundreds and hundreds of acres which have lain in limbo for more than 30 years pending a federal government decision on whether to build an airport on them.
In the interim, the feds have acquired the great majority of the buildings, commercial and residential, in the area, and unless they had a dedicated tenant, have let them go to rack and ruin. We’ve ranted about that “malignant neglect” in this space a couple of times before, so why again? Because the Altona Inn, once a dignified place with a great reputation amongst travellers, is one of the buildings which has been allowed to moulder. It was built in 1850, and an interesting addition, itself more than 130 years old, has already had to be destroyed for safety reasons.
Heritage Uxbridge, the local committee charged with identifying and protecting places of historical significance, has fiercely tried to save the Inn, one of the oldest (if not the very oldest) buildings still standing in our hamlets. And in the list of buildings to be destroyed released last fall by Transport Canada, the Inn was indeed spared.
But this week, in a report to Council, Culture Chair Pat Mikuse said Heritage Uxbridge will “discontinue our efforts to save this historic site”, citing a lack of resources both fiscal and human sufficient to restore it to its former glory. The report cites experts as estimating it would take a half million dollars to accomplish that restoration, and we can well believe it.
But we feel Heritage Uxbridge is hasty in abandoning the Inn to the whims of a government which has a horrible record in the area in terms of preserving buildings, let alone restoring them. If indeed Transport Canada has no plans to tear the Inn down, surely they can be persuaded to grant a long-term lease to the Township, allowing us to conduct a volunteer “stabilization bee” or something like it, which would allow us to keep the building in reasonable condition, to maintain the grounds in an attractive state, until a long-term plan for it can be developed. Apparently Transport Canada is interested in some level of support for that planning, so we should grab that assistance while we can. Stabilization of the site will cost only a fraction of the half-million, and give us the time to find the rest.
If the Pickering Airport is actually finally built (which we would take long odds on), and if the Inn is found to be in the way, then perhaps Transport Canada can help us move it to the Museum or Kennedy House or somewhere. In the meantime, let’s not give it the kiss of death. Even though it’s on the edge of our Township, it should be in the forefront of our thoughts.
