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Beaver Bank
Beaver Bank, Nova Scotia
Mile 2.9 from Windsor Junction on the Halifax Subdivision (Mile 18.62 from Halifax)
- Next Station East: Windsor Junction
- Next Station West: Fenerty's
Facilities & Features
- Station, until May 1956
Commerce and Industry
- 400 foot spur (in 1969) for lumber exports
Description & History
Believed to be named after a large beaver dam by the first Loyalists settlers in the 1780s, Beaver Bank was the location of construction camps and taverns in the mid 1850s during the construction of the Windsor Branch of the Nova Scotia Railway. Tensions between Protestant and Catholic workers sparked a major riot in May 1856 at "Gourlay's Shanty", one of these taverns in the Beaver Bank area.[1]
The railway opened in June 1857 with a station and freight shed at Beaver Bank. It was replaced by an Intercolonial Railway style station in 1886.[2] The station served the Sackville/Beaver Bank area until May 1956 when it was replaced by a flag stop. The station was sold and moved to be a private residence, but was destroyed by a fire in November 1967. The last train across the tracks at Beaver Bank was on November 2, 2010.[3]
The first station master was Daniel Hallisey, an Irish immigrant and railway builder. He built a house which became a hotel next to the station. The hotel was replaced after a fire in 1872. The replacement hotel served as a telegraph and post office and still stands today beside the tracks at Beaver Bank Road (Route 354). It was used as apartments for several years and then converted to a pub, known as the Putting Green Pub, the Black Crow Pub and now The Beaver Bank Station, in tribute to the station that once stood close by.[4]
Gallery
The station at Beaver Bank with Daniel Hallisey's Hotel in background, circa 1915.
DAR 1918 track plan showing Beaver Bank.
Topographic map from Stillwater to Windsor Junction circa 1956.
Beaver Bank Station, 1956.
Beaver Bank Station, freight shed demolition after closure, May 23, 1956.
Beaver Bank station sign, April 21, 1963.
References & Footnotes
- ↑ Ruth Bleasdale, Rough Work: Labourers on the Public Works of British North America and Canada, 1841–1882 U of T Press (2018) page 181.
- ↑ C. Bruce Fergusson, "Beaver Bank", Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Archives (1967), p. 47.
- ↑ "Beaver Bank", Wikipedia
- ↑ Beaver Bank Station restaurant Facebook Post, Feb. 21, 2021
