Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame moves to Guelph

Thursday, March 31, 2016

by SUSAN MANN

The Ontario Agricultural Hall of Fame Association plans to officially unveil the hall of fame’s new location in Guelph later this month.

The association is currently in the process of moving the hall to the second floor of the Ontario Agri-Centre building at 100 Stone Road West from the Country Heritage Park (formerly called the Ontario Agricultural Museum) in Milton. It was located there for 36 years.

Many farm groups and businesses have offices in the Agri-Centre building. The new hall of fame gallery will feature the sketches and citations of about 30 of the most recent inductees in a space near the offices of Farm and Food Care Ontario and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. The sketches and citations of the other inductees will be stored at the University of Guelph archives. There have been a total of 210 inductees.

Reg Cressman, secretary treasurer of the hall of fame association, says the hall is being moved because the heritage park’s owners, Country Heritage Agricultural Society, had an opportunity to do something with the hall’s location in Milton. “As a result of that, we didn’t have a location.”

The hall of fame’s new location will feature a wall-mounted, electronic kiosk where visitors can search the database for inductees using a variety of criteria, such as year of induction, surname, sponsoring organization, industry the inductee represents or others.

“It’s the same process that we have on our website,” Cressman notes.

The new gallery is smaller than the old location, however the new spot provides a “lot more public access” compared to the old site, he explains. “Here we have access whenever that building is open, Monday to Friday, during business hours.”

The association is delighted with the new location. “Guelph is known as the heart of Ontario’s agricultural community.”

Cressman says the association is in the middle of the move. The sketches “should be mounted early next week and I expect later next week, the kiosk will be in place as well. It will give us a couple of weeks to fine-tune everything” before the official opening on April 29 at 3 p.m. BF