FRENCHTOWN, so named as many of the residents spoke French, was an area of tar paper shacks that stretched northward between 133 Fifth Street and the Community Club. Frenchtown was burned down once the houses on Hollywood Avenue were built (1937).
Lower right: A corner of the Roman Catholic Chapel, upper right: Bunkhouse
N: Water tank & mill office.

1908 - Haggart Township was named after Sir John Haggart, MP for Lanark and Cabinet Minister from 1889-1892. The W body was surveyed in 1905 by Speight & Van Hos?
It was subdivided in 1908 by J.W. Fitzgerald, Ontario Land Surveyor.

1910 - The Transcontinental Railroad, Cochrane to Winnipeg, reached and passed the Mattagami River at a location 3 miles South of Smooth Rock Falls. This location later came to be known as Jacksonboro.

Affairs of Mattagami Railroad were handled in their office downstairs at The Inn (south side). Employees handled Mattagami local accounting, sold tickets anywhere including pullman and steamship reservations and dispatched all telegraph business in and out of town.
Parcels, supplies, (company and private) were loaded onto a large wagon then pulled across the street and brought downstairs to this receiving office, or to the train that stopped on the tracks just in front of The Inn hotel.

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1912 - New Ontario: this name was applied to the great northern region, which was new in the sense that not many years had passed since the development of its great and varied resources were undertaken. It was only in 1912 that the boundaries of Ontario were extended to James Bay and thereby a large part of the far north was added to the Province.

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1912 - A New Plan to Colonize New Ontario: Willis K. Jackson of Buffalo, NY, USA, and associates, formed a company under the title of the New Ontario Colonization Company. They purchased two townships, Haggart and Kendrey on the TCR line for $98,364, or at $1.00 an acre. This settlement became known as Jacksonboro.

1913 – Mr. Duncan Chisholm of Toronto secured from the Ontario Government, the lease for pulpwood limit on the Mattagami River. Conditions of the lease was to erect a pulp mill costing, with the equipment and machinery contained therein, not less than $250,000 and at least an average of two hundred men to be employed. The Chisholm limits were later transferred to the Mattagami Pulp & Paper Co.The Chisholm limits took in 25 townships, all south of SRF, and measured 684 square miles, more or less.In order to obtain these limits Mr. Chisholm had to agree to the following condition:“No wood cut on the said territory shall be exported or sold, disposed of to any person or persons, but wood shall be used for the purpose of supplying the said mill or mills.”

On May 9, 1916, William Clippa, his wife Sarah, and daughter Annie age 14, arrived in Smooth Rock Falls just as the sun was setting. They had travelled, by canoe, down river from Jacksonboro. They established the first home in Smooth Rock Falls.​

(all information supplied by Sheila Priebe-Jacques from the Smooth Rock Falls Historical Society on Tidbits of History FACEBOOK)

 

Church

Trinity United Church, 45 Third Ave, SRF:

In 1920 the main part of the building was constructed by volunteer labour that came from all religious denominations. John McKenzie was the main carpenter, Tom Moore Sr. and Tom "Ted" Richmond were the leaders in the building of the church; supervisor was William "Bill" Clippa. The Minister was the newly ordained Rev. Norman Rawson.
- The official opening was held February 7, 1921.
- In 2007, due to a lack of parishioners, this church closed its doors. The Board of Trinity United Church donated the building to the SRF Economic Development Corp. The EDC allow the SRF Historical Society to use the building, as a museum, rent free.