The Village Squire, 1981-08, Page 8The Community Centre, the hub of Ripley's social life. is where"everything of note
takes place,- says Wylds.
MacDonald: "If you walk down the street
here, somebody waves and says 'hi'. "
time a station was built to help serve the Wellington -Grey -Bruce
railway line. Then Paul D.Mclnnes came from Kincardine to be
fulltime postmaster.
But he didn't like the name Ripley for a Scottish settlement
and he endeavored to change it to Dingwall. His efforts added a
new dimension to the word confusion but his rallying cry fell on
deaf ears and on July 1, 1880, he relented and adopted the name
Ripley as the name of his postal charge.
But by any name Ripley, in this era. was thriving. There were
three hotels, several general stores. two blacksmith shops, a
liquor store, a flaxmill, a sawmill and a couple of banks. The
railway made it important for shipping and its retail outlets made
it a shopping centre for the surrounding area. On Saturday
nights it was the place to be.
In the last decade of the 19th century, however, the Canadian
west was also the place to be and many in the Ripley area headed
that way. That was just after a great fire wiped out 26 shops in
the town's core. The end of an era was close at hand. But then.
with Goderich to the south. Kincardine to the north, and
Wingham and Hanover to the east, there wasn't a lot of growth
potential for Ripley as better roads and then the automobile
gave area residents more mobility than ever before.
Ab Wylds will tell you all of that. And more. If you steer him to
the present day he'll mention with pride how the town still has
two garages. a grocery store, a hardware store, plumbing and
electrical contractors, a general store and harness shop, a
firehall, two new schools, a seed cleaning plant, three churches,
a post office, a Legion hall, a community centre ("everything of
note takes place tnere"), a curling rink, a two-day fall fair and an
equally -long and prosperous antique and craft show. He'll tell
you, too, that the town has received what he calls "a second shot
in the arm" with the Bruce Nuclear Power Development on
nearby Lake Huron. It's been nothing like the resurgence
PG. 6 VILLAGE SQUIRE/AUGUST 1981
experienced by Port Elgin and Kincardine, mind you, but it has
resulted in some new residential areas and, more importantly.
some younger families.
The harness shop of which Ab Wylds speaks is owned and
operated by 65 -year-old George McLean, that's George McLean
Junior. For all but the first 10 of those years he has been a Ripley
resident, and he learned his trade in the mid 30s. Soon after his
father bought the Commercial Hotel (at Ripley's main
intersection) in 1942, George Junior moved his harness business
there.
There's no call for a hotel any more (the other one, the Royal,
burned down in 1974 and was replaced by a bank building) and
the McLeans long ago opened a shop that sells everything from
plug tobacco to work boots. "As far as harness today." says
George, "you wouldn't sell enough to make a living. There are
some horse racin' people around here and we sell some to
them."
In political circles George McLean is known as a diehard
Liberal, a leader for the red and white in the Huron -Bruce riding.
He also served 10 years as Ripley's reeve. As he puts it, "I've
seen a lot comin' and goin'. There must have been nine or 10
hardware men in here in my time. 1 can remember when we had
750 people livin' here. That's what it was when it got
incorporated in 1925.
"But we didn't have too much to employ the lads. They had to
head to other places. These small towns aren't gettin' any
livelier, you know."
George McLean doesn't bubble over about Ontario Hydro but
he does think the BNPD has had positive vibrations for Ripley.
"More younger families can stay here, now." he says. "They
can livc cheaper here than they can in the city. And we've got
everything they need. In the winter we've got curling, skating
and hockey.