Reesor is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
located in
Cochrane District
Cochrane District is a district and census division in Northeastern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was created in 1921 from parts of Timiskaming and Thunder Bay districts.
In 2021, the district's population was 77,963, with a l ...
,
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, along
Highway 11 (
Trans-Canada Highway
The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...
), named after its founder, Thomas Reesor.
History
Around 1925, Thomas Reesor (1867-1954), a
Mennonite
Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...
minister from
Markham, Ontario
Markham () is a city in Regional Municipality of York, York Region, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately northeast of Downtown Toronto. In the Canada 2021 Census, 2021 Census, Markham had a population of 338,503, which ranked it the largest in ...
, sponsored and helped to settle new German-speaking Mennonite immigrants from the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
in the area which would become known as Reesor.
[Reesor, Thomas (1927). "Thomas Reesor's Reflections on the Reesor Settlement, 1927." ''Ontario Mennonite History'' (May 2008). Retrieved from http://www.mhso.org/publications/Ontmennohistory26-1.pdf .][Fretz, J.C. (1959). "Thomas Reesor." ''Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online'' (1959). Retrieved from http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/R4451ME.html][Author unknown (date unknown). "Thomas Reesor Family Fonds." Mennonite Archives of Ontario, Conrad Grebel University College. Retrieved from http://grebel.uwaterloo.ca/mao/manuscriptcollections/HM1.225.htm .]
In 1927, a school was built. By the fall of 1928, Reesor had 226 people living on 55 homesteads. A total of of timbered land had been cleared for farming.
[Epp, Frank C. (1982). ''Mennonites in Canada: 1920-1940. A People's Struggle for Survival''. (Toronto: Macmillan, 1982), 219-222, 221.]
By the 1930s, the town included a freight station, a store, a lumberyard, a blacksmith shop, a garage, and a pool hall. The Reesor United Mennonite Church had begun services in 1926; a building and cemetery were added in the mid-1930s on Lot 26, Conc. II, McGowan Township, about north of the siding.
[Author unknown (1959). "Reesor United Mennonite Church (Reesor, Ontario, Canada)." ''Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online'' (1959). Retrieved from http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/R44513ME.html.][Author unknown (date unknown). Ontario Ghost Towns. Reesor-Siding. Retrieved from http://www.ghosttownpix.com/ontario/towns/reesorside.html .]
Besides the Mennonites, the area was also home to a small number of French Canadians.
The transition from cutting pulpwood to agriculture proved to be very difficult in Reesor. By 1935, Reesor's population had slipped to 150. The settlement continued to decline through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, as better opportunities opened in southern Ontario. The Mennonite congregation finally dissolved on 5 January 1948.
[Reesor United Mennonite Church. The congregation's records are housed at the Mennonite Archives of Ontario. Retrieved from http://grebel.uwaterloo.ca/mao/archivesfonds/XIII-2.24.htm .]
Logging continued to play a role with remaining settlers of the region. In 1963, Reesor-Siding ( east of the Reesor community proper) was the site of the
Reesor Siding Strike, one of the defining labour conflicts in Canadian history.
[Reesor Siding Incident. Ontario Historical Plaques. Retrieved from http://www.ontarioplaques.com/Plaques_ABC/Plaque_Cochrane02.html.]
By the 1970s, all the businesses of Reesor had been closed.
In 2007, a play was written about the Mennonite settlement in Reesor by Lauren Taylor and Erin Brandenburg.
[Author unknown (2007). "Reesor, a play about a Mennonite town in Northern Ontario." ''Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia'' (2007). Retrieved from http://www.gameo.org/events/reesor .]
References
External links
* Ontario Ghost Towns:
*
Reesor*
{{authority control
Ghost towns in Northern Ontario
Communities in Cochrane District
Timber industry in Canada