Industry

Grey County has a rich industrial history, ranging from grist milling, furniture making, brickyards, potteries, foundries, and more. Unique industrial products include Keenan 'Kaybee Brand' toothpicks, Barber Turbines, Harold E. Cooke cigars, and Circle Bar Hosiery. 

The Kennedy Empire

A very important collection, which chronicles the growth of a manufacturer in Canada over a 140-year period, is preserved, catalogued and available to the public for research and viewing at the Grey County Archives.

Grey Roots

The Orange in Grey

Orangeism is intertwined with the history of Britain, Ireland and the Reformation and began to form in 1688, when James II came to the throne. One of his goals was to reestablish Roman Catholicism as the major religion in Britain. A coalition of English political parties was unhappy with this pla

Grey Roots

John Frost and the Frost Family Story

This is the story of an extraordinary Canadian family, the John Frost Family, who in the early 1840s, discarded their comfortable, upper-middle class life in Bytown – now Ottawa – for the insecurity and uncertainty of life in the wilderness on western Georgian Bay. 

Ruth Cathcart - Local Historian - Grey Roots Member

Millions of Cigars Left Owen Sound Prior to 1931

When I am walking home from downtown in Owen Sound, I often pass a building that once produced a product I would never want to use, and yet I sometimes wish that I could hop into my time machine (with a camera) to see how the work was done there. The H. E. Cooke & Co.

Joan Hyslop - Registrar

The F.T. Hill & Co. Store

The F.T. Hill & Co. store, once located at the corner of Main and Toronto Streets in Markdale, ON[1] is pictured below in a great exterior view, showcasing some of the wide range of goods available at the time.

Kate Jackson - Archives