60 Commercial

Two months later, on November 8, the Examiner had a further report: “The road across Souris Beach is now everything but good...A few days ago, a party of four in two wagons were coming home when the tide was high and it was blowing hard. They missed their way. The drivers were obliged to get out into the water and lead the horses to the railway station on the south side of the beach."

A change was inevitable. The railway freight shed was sold to Matthew, McLean & Company who used it as a warehouse for many years. In July 1986, the building on the corner of Washington Street and Federal Avenue was torn down. The round house was used as a drill shed for a time but blew down in a storm and its timbers were scattered on the shore. The railway tracks were kept in repair for a number of years to carry freight to Souris West, but finally abandoned.29

Land was bought from Simon Cheverie November 20, 1878,30 and a rail- way station with a mansard roof and living quarters was built north of Pond Street in Souris East. Tracks were laid through the village and out onto a small public wharf built in 1849 but now repaired and extended with a Dominion Government grant. It was thereafter known as the Railway

Wharf.

Photo by Marley 5 Arum t‘ouriexv Pictures of the Past hy leurdu

Railway Wharf

This wharf, built c. 1849, was the first public wharf in Souris East. It became the Railway Wharf in 1877 when the eastern terminus of the railway was moved from Souris Beach to Souris East.

Photo taken in winter of 1900. The shed was later destroyed by a Windstorm.

Soun's East now had a valuable asset. There were other circumstances in the late 1870s, apart from the state ofthe causeway, that made the change of the railway location appropriate. There were complaints in 1877 that the drawbridge at Souris West was insecure. That, of course, was a minor problem, later solved. More important, that same year Souris East was