HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-06-29, Page 43Page 15
- - - - Stops FtCong ‘The ‘Way ’94----
Sainton tannery marks centenary
In a time when new clothing companies
seem to come and go every week, for a
company to have been around 100 years in
one place is a remarkable accomplishment.
In 1994, Bainton's Old Mill marks its
centenary in Blyth.
Today, thanks to Bainton's Old Mill and
The Old Mill south of town, Blyth is famous
as a centre for the leather fashion industry in
Canada. Backed by a strong promotional
program, the two mills draw thousands of
visitors a year from across Ontario, the
northern U.S., even other parts of the world.
People come looking for factory outlet
L, I
prices on unique, quality products.
Things have come a long way from when
Mrs. Charles Bainion moved her family to
Blyth in 1894 from Wingham. Mrs.
Bainion's husband had died some years
before and she had two sons, Allan Bert and
Frank, and one daughter, Jen living at home.
Bert had been working in a tannery and
glove factory in Wingham (there were
tanneries in many small towns then) while
Frank was working at a woollen mill in
Tceswater.
The two brothers rented an old tannery
building on the north side of Blyth Brook,
just north and east of the current building.
They bought sheepskins, hides from
butchers from such centres as Owen Sound,
Kincardine, Goderich, Exeter and Mitchell.
Local trappers provided furs. Some of the
furs were customer tanned in Blyth. All the
sheepskins were processed in the little
factory. The wool was taken off the skins,
processed and sold to the woollen mills that
dotted the area. The skins were tanned and
made into mitts, work gloves and leggings
and sold through the family's first factory
outlet.
In 1898, however, tragedy hit when the
mill burned. The brothers moved to the
south side of the river and rebuilt on the
present site. In 1925 they added a wing to
the north side of the building and installed
machinery to manufacture yam and blankets
from the wool they were processing at the
plant. Basket weave blankets, regular
brushed-wool blankets, auto robes, horse
blankets and yams for hand-knitting were all
sold through the factory outlet, and traded to
farmers for their raw wool.
When Allan Bert dies in 1930, his son
Franklin, only age 20, came into the
business. By now cars and trucks were in use
(the Canadian Pacific Railway line had been
built past their back door in 1907) and hides
were arriving from larger packers in
Stratford, Ingersoll, London, Kitchener,
Guelph, Owen Sound, Toronto and
Montreal.
In 1934 Frank Bainton Sr. died, and
Franklin, at just 24, was on his own to run
the company. He kept building the company
and in 1946 added an addition to the east of
the old building, rcfacing the old building
with matching red brick. Skins were now
arriving from all across Canada, from Prince
Albert and Edmonton in the west to New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia in the cast.
The entire Bainton family was involved
in the business. Franklin's wife Cenetta and
his daughter Glenyce joined the effort. Even
while she was in school Glenyce worked
summers travelling, selling Bainton's gloves
and products to department stores. After
sitting for hours in a wailing room, she'd
finally get to sec a buyer who would offer
her less for the gloves than the cost of
making them. "I didn't feel il was right," she
says. She decided "If I'm going to give a
glove away, let's give it to the customer."
When she graduated a small retail outlet
was set up inside the front door of the plant,
near the offices. There were many who
doubted it would work, predicting people
wouldn't drive all the way to Blyth to shop at
a retail outlet. It worked, however. There
was so little room in the shop that people
had to be let in, a few at a time, while others
lined up outside.
More room became available after the
tannery was moved to a farm southeast of
Blyth because the lack of a village sewage
system made it difficult to meet
environmental standards. Glenyce
remembers working to clean up the
expanded area, a room directly above the
furnace and totally black with dirt, when an
old friend from university dropped in. She
laughs at the thought of what he must have
been thinking when he saw her.
Continued on page 16
Wilson’s Health & Gift Centre
Naturally sweet
Food producers like Susanne Robinson who, along with her husband Bill,
make and retail maple sugar products, will be in attendance at the first A
Taste of Country Food Fair, to be held in Blyth, July 23.
Fair unites producers, processors
Continued from page 14
Festival.
Huron County is the most diversified
farming area in Canada. Based on the 1991
census, Huron's 3,260 farms produced $437
million in farm product. The entire province
of Nova Scotia produced $308 million of
making everything from gourmet breads to
candy, jams and jellies and herb vinegars.
One of the goals of A Taste of Country
Food Fair is to bring producers and
processors together and encourage more
processing of local food products in the
future.
Since 1969
At Wilson's you will find a
fine selection of:
• health & beauty aids
• natural health supplements
• office & school supplies
• jewellery
• greeting cards and gifts
for all occasions
• plus much more
Visit us in downtown Blyth
Jim & ‘Tfidma ‘WiCson
Blyth 523-4440
food.
Huron has the most farms, acres of
farmland, and the highest gross farm receipts
of any county in Ontario. It ranks number
one in production of eggs, winter wheat,
white beans, barley and rutabagas, and is the
second ranked county in steers, hogs, silage
com. The county’s nearly two million broiler
chickens (the kind you eat at your local fast
food restaurant) ranks it third in the province
and dairy production (more than 19,000
cows) ranks Huron fourth.
While the county once was dotted with
small food processing plants, today little of
the county's bounteous food is actually
processed in Huron. There are still food
processors just outside Huron in surrounding
counties. There are also a growing number
of small processors of food in the county,
Display & Sale of Crafts
□ Handmade Crafts □ Home Baking
□ Home Canned Goods □ Produce
□ Plus much more
FRIDAY, SEPT. 30 10 a.m. - 9 p.m.
SATURDAY, OCT. 1 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
SUNDAY, OCT. 2 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
FESTIVAL
New Location at the
Knights of Columbus Hall
just off Suncoast Dr. Ea.
Goderich
Light Lunches & Refreshments available
-Door Prizes-
Contact Milena Lobb
R.R. #2 Clinton, Ont. N0M 1 L0
519-482-3062
for more information