Milnet Ghost Town

Milnet (originally Sellwood Junction) began as a stop along the Canadian Northern Railway.

In 1917, after the railway was laid down, the Marshay Lumber Company built a mill and began a 22 year process of cutting trees from the area. Men from logging camps upstream would let the Vermillion River carry the logs to the mill in Milnet. From there the men at the mill would cut the wood on the blade and then move it along to the planar mill.

The population grew to approximately 200 residents.

On Christmas mornings, the priest (Father Kather) and altar boys would take the train to serve mass in Milnet and then Sellwood. Weekly dances were held, and became a community event. While the town didn't have a water system, they did have a pump out by the boarding house. Doctor Williams looked after the residents.

In 1916 Sellwood Junction's name was changed to Milnet. By this time coal and water facilities were built because the steam engines were able to travel further north as the CNR line no longer terminated at Sellwood.

The saw mill mysteriously burned down in 1933, forcing workers to go on relief or to find work elsewhere. In 1934, the planar mill burned. A fire at the mill in 1939 and a fire in the lumber yard in 1941 effectively ended the remaining hopes of Milnet ever resuming lumber production.

Having no other industry to keep the men employed, by 1940, most of the residents had left.

The post office closed in 1944. The vacant homes were burned or moved. A few homes remain on the site, used seasonally. When these are no longer used by the families who own, they will be destroyed.

• In the middle of the 1900's other ghost towns listed on this site also had a Department of Lands and Forests' fire tower lookout located on a nearby hill. These include: Pakesley, Key Junction, Key Harbour, Dufferin Bridge, Bummer's Roost, Pickerel Landing, Lost Channel, Byng Inlet, Moon River, Cheddar, Germania, Ormsby, Uphill, Biscostasing, Renabie Mine, Milnet, Armstrong, Metagama, Cheminis, Wavell and Pineal Lake . For more info. on Ontario's Fire Tower Lookouts go to this link: Ontario's Fire Tower Lookouts.