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Yesterday And Today, A Salute to Blyth's 125th Anniversary, 2002-07-31, Page 31pest Wishes to 13lyth on its 125t1lyinni1ersary Treebel Landscaping & Supplies TIN NIT-Iv-v"*"7.mr-A-A-AtfOrit l.+- AL. A. 1 mile west of Blyth on Byth Rd. 523-9771 110 Natural Food Store • Vitamins • Herbal Remedies • Organic Food • Sports Supplements • Healthy Snacks • BUlk Food • Body Care • Books • Children's Play Area Congratulations Blyth on your 125th Anniversary 120 lnkerman St. E. 222 Josephine St. 168 Courthouse Square Listowel Wingham Goderich 291-4920 357-3466 524-5801 ri r.' . . . 125th Welcome to Anniversary Specializing in gifts, frames, Blyth's open edition •. 1111 and limited edition prints * Custom framing available Ile yergyeffe7 8 II Queen St., Blyth 523-4944 •• • :.1 L:" litwwwwwwiki_wiwilAwriwikwAAdagA 1 _Weecame to 2evth'a, V. 1 A 125' anniuetaattv t ,_. Blyth Veterinary I f Services I A Blyth 523-9551 E I Lavern Clark, DVM Phil Garriock, DVM Alma Conn, DVM 4-AVA"rAWA*VOIWt4404tilVt*WYNCIWAVC# THE CITIZEN, YESTERDAY and TODAY, WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2002. V .1 I. Leather, wool played important role in Blyth's growth Before the expansion A familiar landmark Children posed beside the mill in 1938, prior to the 1946 expansion. Bainton's is a familiar landmark today. The mural on the silo is a recent addition. Though the outward face of the Bainton's building on Westmoreland Street hasn't changed a lot since 1946 when the current building was constructed, the business within has changed immensely. Today a fourth generation of the family. Franklin Snell, Jayne Marquis, Amanda Aitken and Richard (Jr.) Snell run the retail outlet located in the old tannery building as well as the tannery itself, located south-east of Blyth. The Westmoreland Street building has become an Ontario landmark with people travelling from all over southern Ontario and beyond to shop for high-quality wool and leather clothing and accessories at factory-outlet prices. There has always been a retailing element of the company, starting with a small retail outlet that sold mitts. work gloves and leggings in the original Bainton Brothers plant before the tragic fire of 1898. Retailing continued when the plant was rebuilt and when the brothers built an addition to the north side of the building in 1925 and began manufacturing yarn and blankets from their own virgin wool, those products too were offered to the public. Basket weave blankets, regular brushed wool blankets, auto robes. horse blankets and hand knitting yarns were all sold through the factory outlet or exchanged with farmers in payment for their wool. Circumstances in the 1960s, however, led to a huge expansion of the retailing arm of the Bainton Limited operation. First, the move of the tannery operation to Hullett Township, because of worries about pollution of Blyth Creek, left the downtown building nearly vacant except for the small retailing operation, offices and storerooms. Secondly, Frank and Cenetta Bainton's only daughter, Glenyce, joined the firm. She'd grown up around the wool and leather business and studied business administration at the University of Western Ontario. Glenyce at first travelled doing sales for the company to other retailers but became interested in expanding the retail outlet at Bainton's Old Mill. She recognized that more and more people were willing to make the drive to Blyth to get quality wool and leather products at factory outlet prices. When the small retail outlet could no longer cope with the numbers of people coming, the family decided to expand, taking over more of the downtown building. The next few years brought phenomenal growth at the factory outlet. By 1970 on a fall weekend, it was hard to find a parking space in the entire downtown area of Blyth as shoppers flocked to the annual fall sale. The history of the family business has always played a major role in attracting customers with the date of the founding, 1894, proudly displayed in many advertisements. That year marked the arrival of three members of the Bainton family from Wingham. Allan Bert, Frank and Jayne Bainton were the children of Mrs. Charles Bainton who had lost her husband some years before. Her older children had moved away from home. Allan Bert was working in a tannery and glove factory in Wingham before coming to Blyth. Frank had been working at a woollen mill in Teeswater. When they moved to Blyth the family rented an old tannery building on the north side of Blyth Creek, just east of where the water reservoir is today. They started a wool pulling and tannery operation, calling it Bainton Brothers. The two brothers worked in the plant while their sister ran the office. Sheepskins, hides and furs were bought from butchers within a 100- mile radius including Owen Sound, Exeter and Mitchell. Furs were also purchased from trappers. Hides and sheepskins were picked up monthly with a horse and light wagon in the summer and a sleigh in the winter. These hides and furs were sold to dealers in Toronto and London. Some of the furs were custom tanned in Blyth and all the sheepskins were processed in .the village. The wool was taken off the skins, processed and sold to the woollen mills in the area. The skins were tanned and made into mitts, work gloves and leggings and sold through their factory outlet which was destroyed by fire in 1898. After their outlet was destroyed the Bainton Brothers bought the property on the south side of the creek and built on the present Bainton's site. In 1925 they added to the north side of the building where they installed machinery to manufacture blankets and yarns from their 100 per cent virgin wool. In 1930 Allan Bert Bainton died at age 59. His son Franklin, just 20 Continued from page 26 corner of what is now Walton Road and Elevator Line and built a new elevator complex. This too expanded several times. In 1993 the feed mill was moved to this site and a new feed warehouse and offices were built. Even before CP Rail shut down its railway operation in 1988 the company had become more and more dependent on trucking to deliver its flour. For many years years of age, now ran the business -along with his uncle Frank Sr. They began a wool pulling buSiness again and manufactured knitting yarns. In 1934 Franklin Bainton Sr. died at age 64 and Frankhn Jr. was left, at just 24 years of age, to guide the fortunes of this family's business by himself. Over the next nearly 60 years, however, he was to prove that his early start was just an opportunity to make a bigger mark on the company. It was the height of the Great Depression. Workers at the plant earned $2 a day for working six days a week, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. In 1935 Franklin was married Cenetta, who joined the business. In 1938 their daughter Glenyce was born. The outbreak of World War II brought a growing demand for wool and the Depression was left behind. In 1946 Franklin expanded the original building, adding a three storey building on the east and north side of the original old mill. He also refaced the front of the original building with red brick. He increased the production since he now bought skins from the meat packing _industry all across Canada, from Prince Albert. Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, New Brunswick and' Nova Scotia. •At that time Bainton's were processing approximately 5,000 skins per week. In 1958 he had purchased the former George Sloan farm, located a mile south and east of Blyth in Hullett Twp., from Chester Morr- ison, In 1963 he "moved the tannery and wool pulling operation to the farm where a 13-acre site provided room for a treatment lagoon system. As business boomed, a second modern processing plant was built in 1979, adjacent to the 1963 plant in Hullett Twp. In 1987, Franklin and Cenetta turned over the retail part of the operation to their grandchildren, Franklin, Jayne, Amanda and Richard. Franklin and Cenetta Bainton continued to work at the tannery John and Harold Campbell of Campbell Transport were contracted to draw the company's bulk trailers. In 1999 Howson Transportation Incorporated was formed as a partnership between the fifth generation of Howsons in the business: Steve, Jeff, Rick and Christopher. - Today the various operations employ 43 full-tirnikirid 10 part- time employees. with Franklin and Richard Jr. long after the age at which many people retire. On December 22, 1992 Franklin Bainton, aged 82, collapsed at his office at the tannery. It was perhaps fitting that he died at work at the company he had devoted his life to building to international prominence. Cenetta died in 2002 after several years' recovering from a stroke. But the businesses both go on as the Bainton family ancestors would appreciate. Fifth generation of Howsons now with the company