When was georgetown ontario founded

His mill became the beginning of a small settlement. It was the enterprising Barber brothers who in bought a wooden mill and foundry from Kennedy and renamed the small settlement Georgetown presumably after George Kennedy. It was the papermaking business, however, which the Barber brothers had operated since , which became a real source of prosperity to the Georgetown community for over a century.

Just as the excellent sites for water power and ponds in the early s and the opening up of the York or Toronto to Guelph Road now Hwy 7 in helped to establish this area as a settlement location, it was the building of the Grand Trunk Railroad through Georgetown and the Hamilton and North West Railroad that confirmed Georgetown would be the centre of commerce and industry in the north Halton area.

Georgetown grew rapidly during the s and 60s. An application was made to Halton County Council for incorporation as a Village. This was granted on December 16, The s and 70s saw further growth and prosperity. The Georgetown Herald newspaper was founded in Culp and Mackenzie started to build their award-winning carriages on Main Street in The Creelman brothers founded their knitting machine company in The Bank of Hamilton opened a branch office in Georgetown in , and the first chartered financial institution in all of Halton County.

By the s and 80s the village was undergoing architectural change. Wooden frame homes and public buildings built as early as the s and 50s including stores, churches and schools were being replaced by brick and stone edifices. The new Chapel Street School and Baptist Church where both completed in , the Town Hall in , while the new high school — designed by prominent Toronto architect Edward Lennox — was completed in A walk around the old village of Georgetown today, looking at dates on the corner stones, will confirm that the s and 80s were the heyday of architecture Georgetown.

By Georgetown had installed its first waterworks system. Springs on Silver Creek Hill were piped by gravity from approximately 5 kilometres north-west of the village. This undertaking is reported to have been the first long-distance transmission of hydro-electric power for manufacturing in North America. In , H. Arnold, a tanner, and J. Mackenzie, a lumber supplier, both expanded their Acton business to Georgetown.

John A. Willoughby erected a store in for his livery and bus business. William Smith and Benny joined forces in in Georgetown to produce one of the more successful lines of electrical wire devices.

By , The Toronto Suburban Railway provided yet another means of transportation for passengers and goods between Toronto and Guelph. The Georgetown Station on Main Street at the current Canada Trust site was a familiar landmark, but the venture failed in , due to the depression and the advent of the automobile, as well as the proximity to the Grand Trunk Canadian National Railway line. By the population of Georgetown had reached over This qualified the village to petition the County to declare itself a Town.

In the early s Rex Heslop arrived in Georgetown with his plans to expand the town with large residential, commercial and industrial development. Many of the original historic buildings still stand to this day and with other features make our Downtown one of the most frequently filmed towns in Ontario!

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