St Catharines, Ontario, Canada
St Catharines

The area was first settled by Loyalists in the early 1780s. About 60 per cent of the land of Grantham Township was granted to disbanded members of the British provincial regiment, Butler's Rangers and the rest to either refugee settlers who moved out from the US after American independence or to immigrants from Great Britain.

Land surveys undertaken during this period led to a complex pattern of roads and lots that shaped the city and its building patterns. It was dominated by the pioneer survey grid of Grantham Township, which featured the standard north–south roads, with the east–west roads running parallel to the shoreline of Lake Ontario. In addition, trails used by Indigenous peoples prior to European settlement have survived to become part of the city's major arterial streets, combining a radial pattern of roads within the regular pattern of the survey grid.

By contrast, Port Dalhousie offered a regular grid oriented northeast–southwest along the spur of land that separates Lake Ontario from the mouth of Twelve Mile Creek. Merritton had a small rectangular grid with a traditional north–south orientation.

At St. Catharines, the core community, the Welland Canal (1829) and an associated mill raceway from the canal at Merritton introduced mills, shipyards, and metal and machinery manufacturing to the area. Mineral springs with medicinal properties added resort hotels, and the town became a popular inland summer resort. In the latter half of the 19th century, several railways came to the region: the Great Western in 1853; the Welland in 1859; and the St. Catharines and Niagara Central Railway in 1887. These railways, combined with hydroelectric development from the locks, the raceway, DeCew Falls and later the Niagara River, led to the growth of manufacturing industries.

Leading entrepreneurs included: William Hamilton Merritt, who developed the First Welland Canal; Dr. Chase, who developed the mineral springs into a tourist attraction; William B. Burgoyne, founder of the St. Catharines Standard; Louis Schickluna, for his shipyards; Dr. Theophilus Mack, a prime mover in creating the General and Marine Hospital, and Canada's first school of nursing (1874); and Lachlan McKinnon for founding the industry that became General Motors of Canada Ltd...


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