CHAPTER 9
Communications
FORMOSA POSTAL SERVICE
Little is
known of any means of communication prior to the establishment of our Post Office in 1861. This
service began with Mr. F.X. Messner receiving the appointment of Postmaster on December 1st of that year. The Post Office was
conducted in his own home until he had completed the building of a large stone store
in 1866. (102 years later, March 29, 1968, postal service being dispensed from the same location)
The next
incumbent was Julius Noll, appointed on the 16th of January 1897. This tenure lasted
until the 13th of January 1914. For the next 13 years the service was moved to the
southerly or stoney creek part of the village, Henry Schefter
being Postmaster until June 18th, 1919. George Flachs
returned from overseas service duty and received the appointment until he
resigned the position in 1927. Mr. Willian J. Noll, son of Julius Noll and a tailor by trade,
became the next appointment and served for the following 30 years.
On June 13th,
1957, Frank Zettel became Postmaster until his retirement in March 1968 at which
time Kenneth Oberle, our present Post
Master began conducting the postal
affairs.
Formosa takes
pride in honouring all of
our Postmasters for the special service they rendered to our Community.
The mails were
first carried by men on horseback. Later the stagecoach brought along the precious mail
bags. For many years the rural mail couriers on Route 1 Mildmay called twice daily at the Post Office to bring mail
and pick up the outgoing mails.
RURAL MAIL ROUTES
In 1915 the
delivering of mail to rural patrons became general throughout Ontario.
Formosa's
Alphonse Zimmer became the first courier. The length of his trip westerly into Culross township is given as 19-3/4 miles for which he received approximately $2.00 per
day. Consider for a moment, he needed a horse, buggy or cutter and an average of at least 4 hours each day to carry out his duty.
For many years
R.R. 1 Mildmay couriers were stationed at Formosa.
Sons of Alex Meyer, Edward, Emil and Cornelius served
for many years. Mike Vogt
seemed to have put in the most years as a courier on either Formosa or Mildmay
Routes, while the honour of continuous service on one route would fall to Gregory
Meyer who took care of Formosa R. 1 for
32 continuous
years. These were the days when the saying "Come hell or high water", the mail had to
go through. Just imagine, no snow-plowed
roads,
mailboxes buried under snow, often the horse breaking trail for miles. Frozen fingers, hands and
toes, broken harness, made the job more interesting. R.R. 1 Mildmay
Couriers served mailboxes 6 a.m. prior to meeting the southbound train at Mildmay on many below zero mornings. Yet the mail had to go through.
Other mail couriers from Formosa were G.
McGlynn, Linus Weber and now Robert Weiss.
Truly could be
said of them they were dedicated to the service they rendered many times under most
difficult circumstances.
THE
TELEPHONE
Long distance
telephone lines connecting Walkerton and Wingham came through Formosa about the
turn of the century. It is known that the Brewery had telephones as early as 1899 as
this item was included in the bill of sale of John Schwartz to Lorenz Heisz.
The general
stores and the insurance office were also early users of this means of communication. Nearly
every home or farm was phone-serviced by 1920. Bell Telephone had a switch-board at Walkerton and covered much of the area north of
the village, while the South Bruce Telephone Company, located at Belmore, had
purchased the switchboards at Mildmay and Teeswater and gradually extended
service to Formosa.
At one time as high as twenty
parties would be connected to one line.
The
battery-operated and magneto-powered telephone instruments served well for many years prior to
the introduction of the compact dial sets now in use.
RADIO AND
TELEVISION
Radio, like all
inventions, resulted only because of many years of persistent experimentation. In
1896 Guglielmo Marconi succeeded in sending the first coded message over a
distance less than two miles. By 1901 he had succeeded in bridging the Atlantic,
and telegraphy spread throughout the world. By 1920 the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), through the invention of the
vacuum tube and the electronic detector, opened the way for the broadcasting of voice
and music. In 1922 the first commercially sponsored broadcast was heard and in 1926, The National
Broadcasting Co., America's first commercial network was established by RCA.
About this
time, Wilford Thomas Cruickshank, of Wingham,
Ontario, had already
gained some knowledge of electronics
through his work as an operator in motion picture houses. Doc, as Mr. Cruickshank was called by all, a nickname acquired when
working as a chauffeur for a doctor, was already dabbling in the business of selling
radio receivers. From a do-it-yourself diagram offered in Popular Mechanics, Doc built a 2-watt radio transmitter, which he correctly
assumed would help his main venture of selling more radio sets.
Thus,
broadcasting began in Wingham on February 20, 1926,
from a 2-tube
transmitter nailed to the top of a butter box, as a hobby for a man with ulterior motives. The
station's original call letters were JOKE, until three months later when an amateur license,
and call letters 10BP were granted with about five watts power.
Doc gathered
local talent for a live radio show twice weekly heard on the tiny voice of the
10BP. In 1935 10BP became CKNX with full commercial license and fifty watts power.
Beginning in 1937, all talent met, in the studio, for an hour and one half every
Saturday night for a real 'shindig' called the CKNX Barn Dance. In 1941 power
increased to 1000 watts and the station was moved to 920 on the dial.
The CKNX Barn
Dance Gang, in 1942, began visiting municipalities and performing, and to this day,
play for a few concerts and dances. This gang played in the newly erected Formosa
Community Hall every Tuesday evening back in the early fifties for about five years. These dances
were well attended
and perhaps many will be curious as to what happened to the barn dance gang:
Jack Kingston is in Florida, Mel Lavigne is in Victoria Harbour,
Lloyd Banks, steel player, resides in Hamilton, Bill Mankis,
accordion and
pianist, and Slim Boucher, banjo and bass, live in Chatham, and Ward Allen passed
away some time ago. Earl and Martha Heywood are still heard on the air over CKNX.
The birth of
the radio was indeed a wondrous event. It allowed news and entertainment to be
brought into thousands of homes. In 1954 radio sets and radios were the fastest selling home
appliance.
Television was
first introduced as a service to the American public on April 30, 1939 at the opening of
the New York World's Fair. Although a few persons in the area had television by the late
forties, they could only watch American stations as Canadian Television was launched in 1952.
The initial
telecast on CKNX-TV marked another first in the broadcast field for Doc Cruickshank who
pioneered radio in Western Ontario in 1926. It was November 18, 1955, when CKNX-TV Wingham, the thirtieth Canadian television station to go into
operation, signed on for the first time with Focus, an hour long, magazine type
supper show, produced in the Wingham studio. Wingham
at that time was the smallest centre in North America with a T.V. station.
The popular western music show 'Circle 8 Ranch' was another one of the dozens of
live programs produced at CKNX_
Some of the Formosians have appeared on Channel 8 from time to time. Mr. & Mrs. Clem Waechter
appeared several times on Circle 8 Ranch with a square dance group. Appearing
on that program as well and on the Tommy Hunter Show were Wendel and Allan Schnurr and David Gutscher, also
with a square dance group. A few of the local children appeared on Romper Room and others displayed
their talents playing the accordion.
Television was
an invention to surpass any other means of communication and soon citizens were viewing
events happening on the other Thus, broadcasting began in Wingham on February
20, 1926, from a 2-tube
transmitter nailed to the top of a butter box, as a hobby for a man with ulterior motives. The
station's original call letters were JOKE, until three months later when an amateur license,
and call letters 10BP were granted with about five watts power.
Doc gathered
local talent for a live radio show twice weekly heard on the tiny voice of the
10BP. In 1935 10BP became CKNX with full commercial license and fifty watts power. Beginning
in 1937, all talent met, in the studio, for an hour and one half every Saturday night for a real
'shindig' called the CKNX
Barn Dance. In 1941 power increased to 1000 watts and the station was moved to 920 on the
dial.
The CKNX Barn
Dance Gang, in 1942, began visiting municipalities and performing, and to this day,
play for a few concerts and dances. This gang played in the newly erected Formosa
Community Hall every Tuesday evening back in the early fifties for about five years. These dances
were well attended
and perhaps many will be curious as to what happened to the barn dance gang:
Jack Kingston is in Florida, Mel Lavigne is in Victoria Harbour,
Lloyd Banks, steel player, resides in Hamilton, Bill Mankis,
accordion and
pianist, and Slim Boucher, banjo and bass, live in Chatham, and Ward Allen passed
away some time ago. Earl and Martha Heywood are still heard on the air over CKNX.
The birth of
the radio was indeed a wondrous event. It allowed news and entertainment to be
brought into thousands of homes. In 1954 radio sets and radios were the fastest selling home
appliance.
Television was
first introduced as a service to the American public on April 30, 1939 at the opening of
the New York World's Fair. Although a few persons in the area had television by the late
forties, they could only watch American stations as Canadian Television was launched in 1952.
The initial
telecast on CKNX-TV marked another first in the broadcast field for Doc Cruickshank who
pioneered radio in Western Ontario in 1926. It was November 18, 1955, when CKNX-TV Wingham, the thirtieth Canadian television station to go into
operation, signed on for the first time with Focus, an hour long, magazine type
supper show, produced in the Wingham studio. Wingham
at that time was the smallest centre in North America with a T.V. station.
The popular western music show 'Circle 8 Ranch' was another one of the dozens of
live programs produced at CKNX_
Some of the Formosians have appeared on Channel 8 from time to time. Mr. & Mrs. Clem Waechter
appeared several times on Circle 8 Ranch with a square dance group. Appearing
on that program as well and on the Tommy Hunter Show were Wendel and Allan Schnurr and David Gutscher, also
with a square dance group. A few of the local children appeared on Romper Room and others displayed
their talents playing the accordion.
Television was an invention to
surpass any other means of communication and soon citizens were viewing events happening on the other side of the world, from a small
box in their living room. With technological advances, coloured
television was brought to CKNX September 1, 1966, a definite plus in TV viewing.
A small but
nevertheless important part of the wonder of television is the CKNX-TV
transmitter tower situated near Formosa. CKNX purchased land from the Ed Batte farm in Carrick Township and a TV transmitter tower was erected which
incorporates all the modern safety lights, stationed every 150 feet up to the top of its
650 foot length. On top of the tower is placed a 1000-watt red beacon
which on a clear night can be seen for thirty miles from the air, warning all pilots to stay away.
In November
1955, the tower being turned on, the first test pattern flashed across the screen marking
a milestone in communications for an area far removed from the urban centres of Ontario. This tower also serves as a transmitting station for
the CKNX-FM radio station born April 17, 1977.
Our area does
indeed owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Cruickshank because without his foresight we
would be without local news, sports and entertainment. Each morning, after
the late movie, the voice of Channel 8 bids you goodnight with these last words;
The transmitter is located 2 miles north of Formosa.