Many communities we have travelled to and travelled through have their museum. These places proudly display their local history and are great place to feel and experience the history of where we are. King Township Museum is one of those places.
We were out shopping for shoes, and we found the shoes right on our first stop. Sometimes we need to go to several locations before finding the right one in the right size, but we got lucky. We did not want to go home quite yet, so I looked at my Google Maps of places we had yet to visit and headed to this museum that was a short detour.
Like many of these community museums, it is free entry. It is two rooms, but if you stay and read the description and understand what is on display, it can give insight into the community. We are only mildly familiar with King because we travel through it to shop. There are some locations within King we have visited, but rarely do we stop. We would read up on the displays they had and learn of connections to many other places.
Connections are my favourite thing. To see how this place is connected to another, even places that are thousands of kilometres apart, is fascinating. Today, we can get in contact with anyone, anywhere, or travel around the globe in a day or two, but to see how locations that have real distance between them were connected by the same people or same events, back in a time when the fastest someone could travel was by horse, is astonishing.
The main gallery is the Walter Rolling Schoolhouse Gallery. What is significant about this man is that he was the first black teacher in the township. He served 41 years, and on his retirement day, June 19, 1937, thousands of people attended this event. I found this to be very touching, considering that during this era, racism was an accepted norm.
I love the picture of the students he taught. There are various students with various socio-economic ranges and a few grumpy kids (I hated school, too). This picture is a piece of history and shows all but a small section of those who lived here.
The second room is more of a rotating gallery. It was all about selfies back in the olden days. Although only recently called selfies, it was a well-thought-out display of various portrait styles.
A place like this can easily be seen in under ten minutes, but you miss out on so much of the history and meaning of a location if all you do is not take the time to read.
- Free location
- Ample parking
- A few outbuildings that we closed when we visited.
- You will likely have the place to yourself when you visit.
