Looking for Memories of Harold Linton’s Gas Station

 

Photo from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

Howard McLinton’s Gas Station. Was it was up at the end of High Street on the left as you are going toward Highway 7. Now it is a private home — Looking for memories please?

 

From Heritage Carleton Place

McLinton’s Service Station and Korner Bar

Address: 386 High Street, Carleton Place, Ontario

 

We have all heard of old schoolhouses and churches losing their ‘clientele’ over time and being given a new lease on life as residences. Would you believe that an old service station could be as charmed?

 

Before the Highway 7 bypass was built, truckers and vacationers alike would have to come down Bridge Street and High Street, making McLinton’s service station and snack bar a popular spot to stop for pie and ice cream.

 

David Lemuel ‘Lemmy’ McLinton and his eldest son, Russell, could fill your tank with Supertest gasoline, make your car hum again if it needed fixing (and this without computer-assisted diagnostics), and they also provided that now rarely seen commodity, a phone booth for their traveling guests or teenage sweethearts needing to touch base and coo privately.

With the bypass rerouting traffic, and the novelty that was ‘soft ice cream’ being served downtown, the McLintons eventually closed shop.

Can you see the ghost of the old service station and snack bar in the current residence?

Carleton Place Girl remembers: As a teenager, we walked there many an evening for a chocolate bar and a pop.Sometimes we walked through the Bates and the Findlay apple orchards and helped ourselves to a few apples on the way back. Our greatest danger in those days was getting caught in someones clothes line after dark LOL

Related reading:

One of the 7 Wonders in Carleton Place