Orillia has many landmark buildings - the Leacock Home, the Opera House and Tudhope Manor being the most prominent. But, there is one that no one knows about.
The modest house at the northeast corner of Nottawasaga and Albert Streets is surely the longest continuously operating chiropractic office in Canada, and very likely the world. Who knew?
Chiropractic was created as a profession at the end of the 1890s in Iowa (by a Canadian from Port Perry), and the first graduates of those early mid-west schools slowly spread the profession in the first decade of the 1900s.
In 1910 there were just 25 chiropractors in Ontario (and fewer than that in the rest of Canada) and perhaps a few hundred in the United States, using manipulation of the spine to relieve pain and improve health.
In December of 1910, the first chiropractor arrived in Orillia and opened an office in that Albert Street house, just a two-minute walk from the main intersection of the downtown. W.J. Galbraith was a young man, barely in his mid-20s, who had graduated from the Universal Chiropractic College in Davenport, Iowa just that year.
Degree in hand, he travelled the thousand miles to settle in Orillia, though no one knows his connection with the town. Orillia was the principle industrial town north of Toronto in those pre-First World War years, with 70 factories, zero unemployment and a population of 6,000 people.
Prospects were good for any business enterprise in Orillia at the time, and that was probably the appeal for Galbraith.
Galbraith enjoyed a 36-year career before selling his practice to his sister, Jane, who retired herself just three years later in 1949. The building and the practice were sold to a new graduate of the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto, Howard Munro.
Munro, who lived and raised a family in that building hosting his office, enjoyed a long and respected career that saw chiropractic added to OHIP coverage and the number of practitioners in town triple during the 1970s.
In 1983 Howard retired, selling the practice and building to his son, Don Munro, who had been practising with his father since graduating Chiropractic College in 1975.
Don carried on the practice that had been started way back in 1910, until his retirement in 2010. Though it was Howard Munro who renovated the garage into more office space, it was Don who designed and built the small addition to the building along Albert Street.
In 2010, Munro sold the building and practice. Kevin Matheson, who had been practising in Sarnia and whose father and brother were also chiropractors, took over Munro’s patient base, taking charge of the exactly 100-year old practice. He is still practising today as the Matheson Chiropractic Office, the fifth steward of that original office.
In an era of rapid change and modernization, it is unlikely there is any other chiropractic office in Canada, still in its original building, that is older than Orillia’s.
Towns evolve, businesses move. Galbraith was just the 25th chiropractor in Ontario, and his office is still going strong in the original location. It is a testament to “The Orillia Spirit” that was in its heyday in Orillia way back in 1910.
So next time you’re walking around Orillia looking at the landmarks, check out 36 Albert St. N. to see a slice of Orillia history, an office that once had patients arriving by horse and buggy.
