Figure 2. One of the oldest extant photographs of Arkona shows the businesses along the western side of Arkona Road north of Townsend Line prior to the 1876 fire which destroyed most of the structures north of the structure on the extreme left which still stands. Courtesy of the Arkona and Area Historical Society. A Very Brief Historical Sketch Approximately 10,000 years ago the first people known to have lived in the Arkona-area camped just southwest of the main village leaving behind stone spear points to attest to their presence. Since that time thousands of people of have migrated into the region. In 1821 Asa Townsend (ca.1775alive 1854) and his family set out to exploit a salt spring on the Ausable River just upriver from Rock Glen. In the 1830s the area was surveyed and divided between Warwick and Bosanquet Townships and in 1832 or 1833 settlers of European origin made the area home and a crossroads settlement known alternatively as Broadway, Bosanquet Village, Eastman’s Corners, Smithfield and finally Arkona (1857) came into being. Arkona was incorporated as a village in 1876 and remained so until the creation of Lambton Shores in 2001. The village’s population peaked at about 750 in the late 1870s and thereafter settled around 500 as the failure to attract a railway and two destructive fires in 1876 and 1884 respectively were major setbacks. However, the village continued as an important service centre for the surrounding farming families. Local soil and climate made the area ideal for orchards and small berries which remain an important economic mainstay into the 21st century. Just north of the village the thwarted community of ‘Rockville’ – known mostly as Rock Glen – remained an important centre for milling and in the early 20th century became the site of a dam for the production of hydroelectricity. Arkona’s Main Intersection The main focal point of Arkona’s business interests grew up at the junction of what is now known as Arkona Road and Townsend Line, the latter which separated Warwick and Bosanquet Townships, and the former which was a major thoroughfare connecting the more southerly farms with communities to the north such as Pinehill (Widder) and its successor community of Thedford. This intersection has seen continual change including adaptations forced by two disastrous fires in 1876 and 1884 respectively. The oldest known structure to have survived both calamities stands on the northwest corner of Townsend Line and Arkona Road. Although it was built in about 1851 as a Page 1 of 17
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