EYRE PARK

You are searching for a small lock n lock. An easy find with a few treats and an unactivated coin for the FTF.  Take time though to explore this municipal property.

The town and the park

Eyre, a railroad town abandoned once the railway moved, exists only as a single abandoned store front. It is visible from the road west of the park.  Local historians have shared that the site once housed two elevators, a train station ,a few houses and the store/ post office.  While the town dates to 1910, the post office ran from 1914 to 1963.  Eyre was the home of Max Braithwaite when we taught at nearby Trosley School which formed the basis of his book, Why Shoot the Teacher.  Eyre was also  home to several families part of the Jewish farm colonization movement.  Fleeing the Russian pogroms, the families were interspersed with their non Jewish neighbours.  Most homesteaders in the area were of European ancestry.

The sandy soil of Eyre park combined with the springs just below the surface made for  a popular picnic area for local homesteaders.  In the early years local women's groups kept the park open.  It was a popular  gathering place for local residents in the Dirty Thirtys.  Local farmer, Ted Douglas, recalls coming by horse and buggy to share picnic, ball games and shade at a time when all entertainment had to be free!  The park became less used and then was revitalized in the 1960s for ball games and  then by the local Lions Club.

The park,  owned by the township since 1922, is the home of the Mantario Lions Club, founded in 1979.  They maintain the park and encourage local youths to host an annual ball tournament which brings out hundreds of local enthusiasts in early July.   The club also hosts the Cabri Lake Archaeological Survey which the CO is part of.  See the nearby SAS cache for more information.  Drive on past the park turn off to the sign for Coventry farm  in their yard, a SAS sponsored excavation (1996)unearthed materials as old as 7000 years.  Some of the artifacts including stone tools and pottery are on display at the Eaton School library in Eatonia.

Nearby structures of interest include the now closed Mantario gas station in use for 85 years, the still used Laporte Community Hall (constucted in 1929), Eatonia's TE Eaton house and museum.  WDM's "Prairie Gamble"  notes that before WWII there were 13 wooden grain elevators on the rail lines between Eyre and Eatonia.  By 2003 none were operational but facilities now privately owned can be seen at Laporte and Eatonia. Also nearby is Sagebrush Studios and art gallery where the award winning paintings and pottery of Dean and Fran Francis are housed in well restored local churches.