Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by Marcel Rousseau.
Some were previously published by the Orillia Museum of Art and History and in the book Postcard Memories Orillia.
Bert Burnet’s Service Station was located on the corner of Front Street at 107 Neywash St. Hubert H. Burnet purchased the station in 1940 and operated it as a BA station until the late 1950s.
This promotional Speedcard is larger than a standard postcard and, because of its size, very few survived.
The postcard was mailed in 1941 from Trout Creek Ontario to a traveler’s family in Ohio and close inspection of the bottom left corner reveals the words “Next stop will be DIONN’S”.
It is easy to speculate that the traveler was on his way to North Bay to see the Dionne Quintuplets, perhaps staying overnight in Orillia and buying gas at Burnet’s.
Between 1934, when the Dionne girls were born, and 1943, close to three million people made the long journey to Callander and nearby Quintland. Thousands of cars traveled north from Toronto on Yonge Street, past tourist cabins, snack bars and service stations.
At that time, Highway 11 ran directly through Orillia on Memorial Avenue to Colborne Street and Front Street to Laclie Street.
Quintland launched Northern Ontario’s flourishing tourist industry and contributed to the opening of no less than 16 service stations on the throughway through Orillia.
