The first store in Kinkora was opened by Jerome Buote in 1891, and several years later, a large warehouse was built beside the railway tracks. The first resident doctor, Joseph St. Clair Gallant, set up his practice in 1895. An association of dairy farmers, the Kinkora Dairying Association, was established in 1895. That led to the opening of a cheese factory in 1901. It had 107 shareholders, who between them had 506 milk cows. The facility, “A large commodious cheese factory, operated by a boy from the parish, is now doing good work in turning their milk into money in the easiest manner possible.” (The boy was Emmett G. Murphy, originally from Hope River. Unknown to John Keefe at the time, Emmett Murphy’s nephew, William Murphy would later marry his daughter Kathleen.) After the outbreak of World War One, Emmett Murphy joined the Canadian Army and was sent overseas. He was killed in battle in France in September, 1916, and is buried at Somme, France.

There was an active social life in the community. In addition to the various activities that took place in the church, there were tea parties, dances, card parties, lectures and debating clubs. Horse racing was an especially popular activity. Farmer quoted a description of one event

in 1882. “A large and respectable number of ladies and gentlemen had assembled on the gently elevated meadow, enclosed by one of the best driving parks in the Province.” The racing was accompanied by a dancing booth with a violinist, a delicious repast, a saloon on the grounds, “well furnished with temperate drinks, at which many imbibed without inebriation.” The first prize was won by a thoroughbred named Lone Chase, owned by Patrick Keefe.

A note in the Examiner newspaper on August 13, 1904, described the progress achieved in Kinkora: “From a humble rustic settlement inhabited by sturdy Irishmen from the ‘Old Sod,’ it has grown into as pretty and up—to—date a village as our Island province can afford, inhabited by well— to—do Irish farmers and business men. Kinkora is ever and is yet one of the strongest Catholic centres in the province, and our hopes were more than realized in that line when we visited the beautiful new church at St. Malachi (sic), and beheld the immense congregation that attends it

on Sunday”

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