The Anten Mills Post Office
From McLaughlin to McRae – The Anten Mills Post Office
By Brian Keyes, Feb. 23, 2025
“Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postman from their appointed rounds”. In 1868 the Post Office Act of Canada was passed providing a postal service called the The Royal Mail of Canada.
In 1879 the first Post Office in Anten Mills was opened on Horseshoe Valley Road at the bottom of Hendrie Hill. The first postmaster was James McLaughlin. McLaughlin had bought land along Horseshoe Valley Rd later selling off parcels to Anderson Tennant sawmill and also the North Simcoe Railway (NSR). It is no coincidence that the first post office opened the year the NSR came through the new village which provided a transportation link to/from the outside world.
In 1921 Leo McLaughlin, son of James McLaughlin became the next postmaster. All told the McLaughlin family operated the post office and rural delivery for 70 years when Ron McRae bought the post office property and succeeded as postmaster in 1949. In 1953 Ron McRae passed away and his wife Annie became postmistress. Their son Ed McRae took over the rural mail delivery routes. The Anten Mills post office was closed in 1966 and moved to Minesing. In 1981 the Royal Mail of Canada officially became Canada Post.
Rural Mail Delivery was a key service to the community around Anten Mills in those early years. The postman (mailman) delivered the mail along various ‘Rural Routes’ which resulted in being part of your mail address (eg. John Doe RR#2 Anten Mills ON). A horse cart or cutter (sleigh) often pulled by 1 horse was the early conveyance prior to cars/trucks. The deliveries were 6 days a week with no holidays or sick days. Rural farm people were always glad to see the ‘mailman’ to say hello, catch up on the news or just have a chat.
The incoming mail in Anten Mills was picked up at Hendrie train station each morning, sorted and delivered. The outgoing mail caught the late afternoon train. The Anten Mills post office was a very busy spot at Christmas with many cards, letters and parcels coming/going. (Yes, the post office did all this before Amazon/Purolator)
The legacy of the McLaughlin family lives on in the village with the naming of McLaughlin Street. You may have thought McLaughlin Street was famous for the ‘Giant Rock’ on private property at 15 McLaughlin (don’t trespass to see it) that attracted school children, families and the curious for its mystical powers or for the great floats in the current Santa Claus parades. Now you know that the street has a deep connection to one of our early village institutions, the Anten Mills Post Office.
Anten Mills – by Dennis Gannon
Feb. 23, 2025 – It’s fair to say that we are all over with winter. In fact on Saturday it is the beginning of meteorological Spring. That always happens on the first of March while astronomical Spring occurs on March 20 at 5:01 AM. Winter this year reminds many of us of winters past. Lots of snow, cold weather and high snow banks. The outlook for Spring from the weather specialist is above normal temperatures and drier conditions. Something to definitely look forward to.
On a more serious note our volunteer firefighters have had to battle the weather on three separate occasions during the past several weeks. There have been two house / structure fires and a rail locomotive fire. The firefighters battled extreme temperatures and heavy amounts of snow to work at extinguishing these fires. This is brought to your attention for a definite reason. House or structure fires increase in size every quickly. Experts state that a fire can go from a small flame to flashover, which means total engulfing between 3 and 5 minutes.To put this in perspective, a fire in a kitchen could spread to the entire house in less than 5 minutes. These facts are not meant to scare you but make you aware. You need to ensure that you have working smoke alarms in your home that are up to date and tested monthly. You also need to have a fire safety plan so everyone in the house knows what to do and where to go in the event that the smoke alarms activate. Simple but effective.
There is something else that everyone should know. We rely on very experienced and well trained firefighters. They are volunteers. They are not stationed at the fire hall but come from their homes or work to respond to the emergency. The closest fire station we have is in Minesing. That is a 7 to 8 minute drive in good weather after they get there. Once they are at the emergency they need to set up their equipment to fight the fire.
In our community we do have fire hydrants that can be accessed. Recently one community member posted on the Anten Mills Community Bulletin Facebook page about their efforts to keep the fire hydrant near their house cleared of snow and suggested others do the same. Kudos to them. A trip through the community unfortunately found almost all fire hydrants buried by snow. To the few people who have gone out of their way to keep the hydrants accessible, a big thank you.
As stated at the beginning we are almost all finished with winter. It will still be here for a few more weeks. As a service to everyone in the village, if there is a fire hydrant near you, go out and shovel or blow the snow away. Let’s keep our area fire hydrants available to be used and remember that it could be your family or neighbours who could benefit from your good deeds.
When a call goes out for help, there is almost always someone from the village who will answer the call. With the perfect temperatures we have had, the ice rink has had the best season in a number of years. The only drawback has been the snow. While the crew has been able to use snowblowers to get the snow off, the banks were getting too high. A call went out for help with a tractor to move the banks. The next morning the call was answered and Jordan Carson showed up with his tractor and removed the snow banks. Now should there be more snow, there is a place to move it to. Our community appreciates all the volunteers who have worked on the rink this year and there is a good chance it will still be available during the March break.
Many will remember that in February volunteers went out and around the country seeking donations for Heart and Stroke month. That hasn’t happened for some time but heart health is still important to recognize. Learning how to do Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is something that everyone should know. Modern CPR is easy to do and if you don’t want to take a course you can learn it online. Doing CPR is the first step in the Chain of Survival. The next step would be the use of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED). An AED can restart a heart that is no longer beating. An AED is totally safe and can never hurt someone. An AED will provide verbal instructions on how to use it. We are fortunate that we have an AED accessible 24/7/365 for us to use here in our community. It’s located outside on the front wall of the community centre. Should you find yourself in a situation where someone has suffered a cardiac arrest, start the chain of survival. Call 9-1-1 immediately, begin CPR and if possible, send someone to the community centre and retrieve the AED.The chances of survival increase greatly when an AED is used so don’t hesitate, start the chain of survival. As a footnote, there are AEDs at all the community centres in the township and all outside and are available 24/7/365,
Daylight Saving Time returns on Sunday, March at 2AM. We turn our clocks ahead and while we may lose an hour’s sleep, we gain more daylight which is appreciated. It is also a good time to check your smoke alarms and replace any batteries that they may have.
That’s it for this week. Remember to check out Brian’s story on the post office we used to have. THANKS for READING, STAY WELL and BE SAFE.