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Cooper's Falls (or Coopers Falls) is a hamlet in central Ontario, on the Black River near the village of Washago in Ramara Township. It is named after Thomas Cooper, the first settler in this location. Although there are a few families living in Coopers Falls, it is considered a ghost town, because its current population is significantly less than it once was.
Contents
Map of Coopers Falls, ON, Canada
History
In 1864, Thomas James Cooper and his wife, Emma and three young children, emigrated to Canada on the steamship "Hector" from Fawkham, England. They arrived in the area from the train in Barrie. From there they proceeded to make their way by boat to Washago (a town adjacent to Coopers Falls). There they set off into the bush to find a location to build their home in lands occupied by wolves.
Emma and Thomas Cooper built a house and general store half a mile from a waterfall on the Black River. Many years later, in 1878 the first post office opened with the name Cooper’s Falls.
The village soon added a general store, blacksmith and cheese factory. A log schoolhouse was built in 1874 followed by two churches. The Methodist church was built in 1894 and the Anglican church was built approximately 1884.
Thomas Cooper had hoped that his town's inhabitants would live good and clean lives. He believed in prohibition and thus, was not pleased when men from the lumber camps would show up in town, drunk.
The town's demise came when the lumber mill closed. The actual waterfall which took the Cooper name sits on private property, but can be seen from Cooper's Falls Road, especially in winter and early spring, when foliage doesn't obstruct the view.
Contemporary life
Strung high across Cooper's Falls Road - between the town's former general store and an old wooden building known as "the courthouse" - a colorful strand of 14 large bulbs has served as a cheerful and symbolic landmark to the countless Canadian families who have passed through Cooper's Falls in the last 40+ years. For this reason, the colorful lights and their keeper, Frank Cooper, were the subject of a 2011 Arthur Award, given by Stuart McLean, the host of CBC Radio's The Vinyl Cafe. A photograph of the lights can be seen on The Vinyl Cafe's website.
Tourist attractions
The Black River Rd. just north of the village leads east into the City of Kawartha Lakes and to a well-known rapids called Victoria Falls inside the Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Provincial Park. You will pass the spot where an old ghost town called Ragged Rapids, Ontario once existed (which had its own post office and a dance hall in the 1930s).