Marlbank Ghost Town

nfo: Marlbank was originally called Allen's Mills after Dr. James Allen, the first settler. He was a graduate of Edinburgh University who came to Canada shortly after graduation and settled in Conway, Ontario about 1839.

As the soil at Allen's Mills was ideal for the making of cement, the English Portland Cement Company built a plant in Marlbank, Ontario in 1891. This site was later purchased by the Beaver Portland Cement Company in 1898.

The operations produced portland cement, which is a fine grey powdered cement consisting of limestone, clay and sand which has been heated to 1500 degrees Celcius. The cement plant employed around two hundred men at its peak. They were paid one dollar a day for a ten-hour day or ten cents per hour. There were forty residences and a boarding house that slept one hundred men. These houses occupied the now empty fields opposite the factory. Many of the boarders and workers were of French or Hungarian nationality.

The newly formed Canadian Portland Cement Company Limited took over the plant owned by the Beaver Portland Cement Company at Marlbank (taken over by Canada Cement Company Limited in 1909 and closed in 1914).