Bon Echo Provincial Park - History

History

The Bon Echo region - after enterprising lumbering companies came and went, along with the farming communities that accompanied them - was purchased in 1889 by Dr. Weston A. Price and his wife, who were inspired by the majesty of Mazinaw Rock and the surrounding area. They named the area 'Bon Echo' because of the acoustical properties of the Rock, bouncing sound across Mazinaw Lake. There on the narrows, the Prices built a large, handsome hotel, the Bon Echo Inn, which catered to the wealthy who were looking for a healthful retreat. Price banned alcohol on the premises due to strong religious beliefs and the Inn attracted primarily people who shared the Price's beliefs. The hotel was also populated by a contingent of Methodist pastors, and attendance at Sunday church was required by those who stayed there.

After a number of successful years at the Inn, a personal tragedy compelled Dr. Price to sell his holdings at Bon Echo. He found a buyer in Howard and Flora MacDonald Denison. Flora was both a successful business operator in Toronto and a vocal proponent of women's rights, starting, along with other feminists, the Canadian Suffrage Association. Years earlier the Denisons had attempted to purchase a cottage from Price, but instead had settled for a lot south of the Inn when Price was reluctant to sell to them. After obtaining the property for $15,000, they sent away the pastors and turned Bon Echo Inn into a haven for artists, poets and writers, most notably James Thurber.

Although Walt Whitman had never visited Bon Echo, Flora admired Whitman's work so much that she commissioned a piece of his poetry to be chiseled into the face of the Rock in foot-tall lettering, where it can still be seen today. The work was performed by two Aberdeen, Scotland stonemasons and took all of the summer of 1919 to complete.

After her death in 1921, the land and Inn was inherited by Merrill Denison, her son and a very successful entrepreneur. He continued to operate the Inn until the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929. After that, the Inn was leased to the Leavens Brothers who operated it as a summer hotel, and other portions of the property were rented out for use as a boys' camp and other recreational purposes. In 1936, the Inn and many outbuildings were destroyed in a fire started by lightning striking the bakehouse. The loss was not fully covered by insurance, and the Inn was never rebuilt.

Merrill Denison continued to spend summers at Bon Echo, using it as a quiet location to write. Some of the cottages, including Dollywood and Greystones, remained in use as summer getaways for years to come, but financially the property was often a burden on the Denisons. In 1955 the province of Ontario passed legislation allowing them to accept donations of land to form provincial parks. Although he could have made a substantial profit dividing and selling sections of the property as building lots, Denison's interests in conservation led him to donate the land to the province for the purpose of forming a park in 1959.

In 1965, Bon Echo Provincial Park officially opened. A plaque was placed at the Narrows dedicating the park to Flora MacDonald Denison and Muriel Denison, who was Merrill Denison's first wife and an author whose works include the 'Susannah' series (Susannah of the Mounties, et al.), made famous by the Shirley Temple film adaptions.