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New Orillia road named after 'pioneer for women in business'

Nelle Carter Court will eventually be home to about 17 new businesses; 'It’s a great idea and it’s a nice honour,' says late businesswoman's granddaughter

A new road named after a late Orillia businesswoman has been created in a fitting part of town.

At its meeting this week, council committee approved the name Nelle Carter Court for a new road in west Orillia.

Business is booming in that area, and business is one of the many reasons Carter was well known.

She opened a book and gift store in Orillia in 1937 and helped her husband run the popular Carter’s restaurant on Mississaga Street, where she looked after the books.

Nelle Carter Court will eventually service an estimated 17 businesses in the Horne Business Park, not far from the new Orillia OPP detachment.

“It’s a great idea and it’s a nice honour,” said Carter’s granddaughter, Kim Maxwell (née Carter). “I think she would be quite honoured.”

Carter died in 1980, but her legacy lives on. In 1991, the Orillia Business Women’s Association created its Woman of the Year award and decided to name it after Carter. It continues to be handed out annually.

It was a fitting honour, Maxwell said.

“She was kind of a pioneer for women in business,” she said. “Women didn’t really run businesses at that time.”

Coun. Pat Hehn, who was named Woman of the Year in 1995, was happy to support naming the new road after Carter.

“It’s entirely appropriate. She really was a woman ahead of her time,” she said. “It’s a good fit because it says to people moving new businesses to town that we value what women bring to business.”

Carter was also Orillia’s first female councillor, having been elected in the late 1940s. She later lost her bid for mayor, but she still made her mark, showing other women, “If she can do it, so can I,” Hehn said.

During the council committee meeting, Mayor Steve Clarke praised Carter’s dedication to the community, where she not only ran a business but also served with several clubs and championed a number of causes.

“We all acknowledge the benefits that Nelle Carter has brought to our community on a number of fronts,” Clarke said.


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Nathan Taylor

About the Author: Nathan Taylor

Nathan Taylor is the desk editor for Village Media's central Ontario news desk in Simcoe County and Newmarket.
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