Sulphide, Ontario

Sulphide is a settlement in the municipality of Tweed, Hastings County, Ontario, Canada, about 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) west of the community of Hungerford and 8 kilometres (5 mi) northeast of the village of Tweed. Sulphide Creek, a tributary of the Moira River, flows through the community. Founded in 1836, the town was named for a series of local sulphur mines that were eventually terminated in the mid-1960s. The name of the town "Sulphide" came from the mineral that gave the town its existence. And it was by accident. A failed gold mine was reopened but what was found was not gold, it was pyrite, better known as '"fools gold". As luck would have it, the sulphide in the pyrites was exactly what a chemical company needed. In 1905, a chemical company erected a large acid plant for the manufacture of sulphuric and sulphurous acid. The company - Nichol's Mining Company and its workers built a town that included a school, churches, community center and homes for the workers. For nearly fifty years, the uranium mines in nearby Bancroft provided the market for the acids. Then, in 1964, the uranium market collapsed. The mine was subsequently closed and buried, the plant dismantled and the company houses demolished. Today, Sulphide is home to country living, with some of the original private houses re-occupied. Still, there are some reminders of the past that do exist.