Submitted by the staff of the Orillia Museum of Art & History (OMAH)
Have you ever visited the Orillia Museum of Art & History (OMAH) before? The museum is located in the Sir Samuel Steele Memorial Building at 30 Peter St. S., a structure which has its own significant history.
The included postcard shows Orillia’s post office and customs house at 30 Peter St. S. shortly after it was constructed in 1894. The original building was designed by Chief Dominion Architect, Thomas Fuller, who also designed the Parliament buildings in Ottawa.
The building cost $14,000 to construct, while the price tag on the property was $1,000. As you can see, the building looked quite different from how it appears today, namely that OMAH’s iconic clock tower is missing. The clock tower would be added in a renovation which took place from 1914-1916, after this postcard was published.
The building served as Orillia’s post office and customs house for 64 years. When the post office moved into a new building at 25 Peter St. S. (its current location), the building took on a new tenant, becoming the headquarters of the Orillia Police.
From 1956-1977, the building housed the local police service, which saw the addition of a courtroom on the main floor, and a shooting range and eight jail cells in the building’s basement.
If you visit OMAH today, you can still see six of those jail cells, as well as the permanent display about the history of the Orillia Police, curated by Amy Henderson. It was during the 1970s that the building acquired the name, Sir Samuel Steele Memorial Building.
When the police moved from the building in 1977 to a larger detachment a block and a half away along Peter Street South, the building served as an office space for community organizations, like Big Brothers Big Sisters for nearly 20 years.
In 1994, the Sir Sam Steele Art Gallery took up residence on the building’s first floor, promoting art and culture in downtown Orillia. Five years later, the gallery would amalgamate with the Orillia Historical Society, and thus, the Orillia Museum of Art & History (OMAH) was born.
Next time you’re in downtown Orillia, stop in at the museum to learn more about the building’s own fascinating history.
Next week we will feature another object from the OMAH collection that showcases our local history
