A piece of Petrolia's history will be on full display during an upcoming walking tour of Hillsdale Cemetery.
The Petrolia Heritage Committee is hosting the biannual tour, which began in 2013, from noon to 4 p.m. September 18 at 3725 Petrolia Line.
Spokesperson Liz Welsh said the committee conducts plenty of research on some of the interesting people at the cemetery.
"Then we give all of that information to Petrolia Community Theatre members and they create small vignettes or two to three minute plays about each of those characters and they act them out on the person's gravesite," said Welsh. "We do it in a respectful way. It's a very unique way to tell the history of our town and some of the people out there, and all of the funds go to monument restoration and Petrolia Community Theatre."
Welsh said tours visit around eight to ten gravesites, they start every 15 minutes and take about an hour.
"We've had in the past everyone from oil barons to blacksmiths to lumber people to just regular old town characters, like Buff Keck, and the role they played in Petrolia's history," she said. "The first year we featured a couple, perhaps even a family, who died in the Wanstead train wreck, one of the largest train wrecks in the country at the time."
Tickets for the tour are $20 and can be purchased at the Petrolia Municipal Office. There will also be a limited number of tickets available at Hillsdale on tour day. Welsh said the committee is expecting another sellout.
Last year's tour was cancelled because of the pandemic. Welsh said the next tour will take place in 2024 when Petrolia celebrates its 150th anniversary.
