1921 bridge piers, Dundas Street Bridge.
Ontario's industrial and transportation heritage can be traced back to the first mills and dams built along major waterways in the eighteenth century. From waterpower to steam engines to hydroelectricity, industry powered the Upper Canadian economy in tandem with agriculture and it supported the settlement and growth of communities, villages, towns and cities. Transportation networks soon followed, expanding with the exportation of goods and the importation of immigrants. Aboriginal pathways evolved into rutted, muddy roads, improved over time, and land patents required new settlers to clear the surveyed right of way adjacent to their holdings. New forms of transportation such as railways in the nineteenth-century and automobiles in the twentieth further transformed the landscape with increasingly intricate social, economic and communication networks.
Early bridges mark historic roads, Creditview Road, Mississauga.
Canada's industrial and transportation heritage can be seen in the built environment and uncovered below ground in historic archaeological deposits. The need for historic research and evaluation of industrial and transportation heritage sites has grown steadily in Ontario as individuals in the public and private sector consider adaptive reuses of older properties as well as the replacement of an aging transportation infrastructure. Adaptive re-use offers up many possibilities for the developer while heritage conservation offers new life to significant historic properties whose original functions and forms may be obsolete.
Modern roads follow mountain pathways, City of Hamilton.
Former lime kiln, Elora.
Railways brought prosperity to Ontario settlements, East Flamborough, City of Hamiton.
Abandoned tramway, Deloro Mines, Deloro Ontario.
Abandoned elevated tracks, Deloro Mines: Ontario's industrial heritage.
Underneath the 1936 Sixteen Mile Creek Bridge, Town of Oakville.
