Memorial Park

Dundas Street was the first road constructed through Toronto Township in the 1790s, laid out one mile from the lake as a defensive measure against the threat of American invasion. The purchase of lands from the Native Mississaugas opened Toronto Township for surveying, and the 1806 British survey created a grid of lots and concessions still used today. Shortly afterward, Lakeshore Road was cut through the forests closer to Lake Ontario, and by 1819 it was planked and the Credit River was bridged. The bridge on Lakeshore Road remained vital to the commercial life of Port Credit even as later structures grew much larger. The completion of a railway from Hamilton through Port Credit to Toronto in 1855 had an immense impact on the community: most of the village had been established on the west side of the river, but after a railway station was built on the east side at the top of Stavebank Road, most commercial growth shifted there. By the 1870s, shipping through the port declined because sending goods by rail was cheaper, faster, and possible year-round, unlike the harbour, which froze for months at a time. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, rail traffic continued to grow, and by 1900 the Grand Trunk Railway had added a second set of tracks and built a larger bridge.

Ontario · Canada