Your City Mississauga | 50th Anniversary Commemorative Edition

We Built This City

Mississauga's Legacy: 50 Years, 50 Stories! Journey through the lives, tales, and achievements that have defined our city.

A MESSAGE FROM YOUR CITY MAGAZINE'S PUBLISHING TEAM

It is with great pride and excitement that we present Your City Mississauga, a magazine dedicated to celebrating and sharing the unique stories, businesses, and vibrant culture of Mississauga. This year is especially meaningful as we join the city in celebrating its 50th anniversary—a milestone that highlights the incredible growth, innovation, and community spirit that defines Mississauga.

Over the past five decades, Mississauga has evolved into a thriving metropolis where businesses, families, and individuals come together to create an inclusive and dynamic environment. This city fosters creativity, supports local talent, and welcomes all who contribute to its ever-growing character.

As I reflect on my own journey, I feel a deep personal connection to the creative and inspiring spirit that defines Mississauga. I am fortunate to have a cottage on the same lake that inspired Oscar Peterson, and his beautiful composition Harcourt Nights will always hold a special place in my heart. Another cherished memory is interviewing the legendary Tommy Hunter during my college years—an experience that underscored the power of storytelling and community.

The Graymatter Marketing team has been especially proud to be part of this special publication. Your City Mississauga serves as a platform to showcase the extraordinary stories that make this city so unique—from the businesses driving innovation to the events and people who bring us together. Our mission is to celebrate the essence of Mississauga and share the moments that make it special.

Thank you for inviting us to be part of your lives and for allowing us to join you in marking this remarkable milestone. Together, let’s continue to build on the legacy of Mississauga and celebrate the future ahead.

Warm regards,

Audra Leslie

Audra Leslie, Publisher of Your City Mississauga & Owner of Graymatter Media

A MESSAGE FROM LYNN LEWIS ROTARY CLUB OF MISSISSAUGA

As the city of Mississauga marks its 50th Anniversary, it’s important to reflect on this incredible journey of transformation, growth, and prosperity. Mississauga’s story is one of visionary leadership and community spirit. In addition to celebrating the City’s 50th Anniversary, the Rotary Club of Mississauga celebrates its 70th Anniversary, a momentous occasion. With the assistance of the City of Mississauga, the Your City Mississauga 50th Anniversary Magazine is an initiative that the Rotary Clubs in Mississauga undertook to commemorate the Anniversary.

In celebration of Rotary’s dedication to the community, Rotary Clubs in Mississauga have come together in a powerful partnership to raise funds for the new Trillium Health Partners hospital (located at Hwy 10 & Queensway), a crucial development aimed at expanding healthcare services for our growing community. This collaboration involves the Rotary Clubs in Mississauga working alongside local businesses, philanthropists, and community members to raise $10 for each resident in the City of Mississauga to fund the hospital’s state-of-the-art Leading Edge Life Saving Equipment for a Diagnostic Imaging Centre, Surgical Suite, Intensive Care Units and Maternity & Labour Rooms. Through this partnership, Rotary’s long-standing commitment to “Service Above Self” is exemplified, as they unite to ensure that Mississauga residents have access to the highest quality healthcare.

Lynn Lewis

Lynn Lewis, Rotary Club of Mississsauga

Rotary Clubs in Mississauga

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A MESSAGE FROM VICTORIA CLARKE, CEO, VISIT

MISSISSAUGA

At Visit Mississauga, we’re lucky to spend our days sharing stories about the people, places, and products that make our city special. We’re passionate about exploring what makes Mississauga unique, and we want locals and visitors alike to embrace it as much as we do.

That’s why we’re thrilled to present We Built This City—50 bespoke stories that celebrate the people and events shaping Mississauga’s history and future. While each story is unique, they share three key themes.

First, these are stories of passion and big dreams. From Canada’s first award-winning wine to the iconic Canadarm, these achievements happened because people believed in their ideas and gave their all to bring them to life.

Second, these stories highlight the importance of staying true to your principles. Achieving something great often requires earning others’ trust and delivering on promises. This spirit lives on in icons like Kate Aitken, Canada’s original influencer, who supported homemakers through her advice, or Harold Shipp, who helped families find their dream homes in Applewood Acres, Mississauga’s first suburban development.

Lastly, success in these stories comes from teamwork and lifting others up. No great accomplishment happens alone – they take a village, and a community. Take Tommy Hunter, whose CBC show

GREETINGS

FROM

MISSISSAUGA CITY COUNCIL

As Mississauga celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2024, we reflect on an incredible journey of transformation and growth. Fifty years ago, Mississauga was a collection of small communities and farmland. Today, it stands as Canada's sixth-largest city, a dynamic blend of cultures, innovations, and natural beauty.

The city’s growth is a testament to visionary leadership and community spirit. Founding leaders saw the potential of the region and laid the foundation for a city that was planned for the future. They aimed not just to build a suburb of Toronto, but a thriving, independent city of progress and opportunity.

Mississauga’s skyline now features sleek high-rises and corporate headquarters, signaling its economic vitality. Once quiet streets are now alive with the energy of diverse communities, each neighborhood contributing its unique charm—from the historic appeal of Streetsville to the artistic atmosphere of Port Credit.

The city has also become a hub of innovation, attracting global talent and investment. Strategic initiatives like the Economic Development Office have fostered cutting-edge research, technology, and sustainable development, driving the city's future.

As we celebrate this milestone, we also recognize the challenges ahead. Mississauga’s commitment to building a sustainable,

helped launch the careers of stars like Shania Twain and Norman Jewison, or George Hunter, whose groundbreaking aerial photography inspired global artists, including Saype and his fitting tribute to Mississauga’s anniversary and the united communities who have built this city.

We hope these stories inspire you as much as they inspire us. Let’s celebrate the visionaries, dreamers, and doers who make Mississauga shine around the world.

Victoria Clarke

Victoria Clarke, CEO, Visit Mississauga

inclusive, and resilient future is vital. Balancing growth with environmental stewardship and ensuring prosperity is shared by all will be key.

Mississauga’s 50th anniversary is not just a look back, but a toast to the future. The spirit of innovation, diversity, and community that has shaped the city will guide it through the next fifty years and beyond. Here’s to Mississauga—ever-evolving, ever-inspiring.

PRODUCED & PROUDLY BROUGHT TO YOU BY

A CITY 50 YEARS IN THE MAKING

A collection of 50 incredible stories in celebration of 50 years

Through captivating stories and personal memories, we will explore the lives and achievements of the people who have left an indelible mark on our community. From renowned figures like Mazo de la Roche and Oscar Peterson to the unsung heroes of local industries and wartime efforts, each installment will delve into the rich tapestry of Mississauga’s history. Join us as we uncover the past and look forward to the future, sharing the remarkable tales of the renowned figures, individuals, and groups who have shaped Mississauga into the vibrant cultural canvas it is today.

FROM THE AUTHOR & EDITOR,

LISA HRABLUK

Celebrating Stories of Mississauga

I remember when Square One was a square.

My mom worked as a switchboard operator at Sears in those early days, and I loved going with my Dad to pick her up. We’d walk through the glass entrance of Mississauga’s big mall, winding past the mannequins and clothes racks to a door marked ‘private’, behind which my mom sat.

To my child’s eyes I felt like I was entering a special, secret place in the heart of my city.

Now it’s your turn to explore Mississauga through the stories of some of the incredible, infamous and interesting people who have built this city.

People such as Mississaugas of the Credit political leader Rev. Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby), who negotiated a majority Indigenous ownership of the original Port Credit Harbour; authors Mazo de la Roche and Robert Sawyer, who put Canada on international best-seller lists; athletes such as Ali Khan and Gayle Borthwick, who made the world cheer; and performers such as Lata Pada and Oscar Peterson who showed the world that the ‘burbs know how to dance and swing.

Creating community is something we do together, and Mississauga has been shaped by the actions of many such as the high school students, local business owners and community volunteers who demanded their own hospital in the 1960s and raised the money to build it; and the people who moved here through the decades

to create businesses, contribute to health care innovations and connect Mississauga with the world.

I’ve collected 50 stories to celebrate the richness of Mississauga’s story and, just like the people I’ve featured, I didn’t work alone. First, thanks to Victoria Clarke, Rachael Watson and the team at Visit Mississauga for championing and sponsoring this project.

I relied heavily on the knowledge and generosity of Matthew Wilkinson and the team at Heritage Mississauga, Stephanie Meeuwse and her team at Museums of Mississauga, archivist Nick Moreau of the Region of Peel Archives, Ron Duquette, founder of Mississauga’s Legend’s Row and many staff members and volunteers who shared stories of their organizations.

And thank you, our wonderful readers. I hope you enjoy our stories, told through our podcast, online and in this magazine about the people who helped make Mississauga what it is today.

May you be inspired by the possibilities of what we can build together in the years to come.

1

The Heartbeat of a Growing City

To understand how Canada rocketed from colonial outpost to G7 nation take a stroll through Square One.

Mississauga’s iconic shopping mall has charted our country’s economic and population growth from its conception over a half a century ago to its place today as the centre of one of Canada’s most diverse and active cities.

Our story begins in the late 1950s, during a period of intense technological, political and social change.

First, the engineering ingenuity that had powered the production of wartime aircraft was now being used to advance commercial air travel, which led to significant upgrades at the old Malton airport.

In 1958 it was renamed Toronto International Airport and over the next few years set about to construct new terminals, runways and facilities to accommodate the rising number of commercial airline passengers, setting off for elsewhere in the country and the world.

Second, as air travel was becoming more accessible, the Canadian government was loosening its restrictive immigration policies. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s government eliminated racial discrimination in 1962, enabling non-Europeans to move to Canada in answer to the post-war economy’s labour needs.

Then, in 1967 Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government introduced Canada’s now-familiar points immigration system, which assesses potential immigrants based on skill sets, education levels, language ability and family connections.

Third, a booming economy and growing population meant a rising middle class, with young families dreaming of homes with backyards, nearby parks and lots of amenities, such as movie theatres, restaurants and shopping.

Local developer Bruce McLaughlin took note of these three changes and in 1960 began to purchase land including the Carr family farm on the northwest corner of Burnhamthorpe Road and

Hurontario St. By 1973 his company S.B. McLaughlin Associates, owned 4,000 acres in what is now Mississauga’s central core, stretching east west from Cawthra to Wolfdale and north south from the 401 to Burnhamthorpe Road.

McLaughlin was at heart a planning nerd. He envisioned a community of 125,000 people living in everything from high rises to single-family homes, with a plethora of industrial, commercial and retail businesses clustered nearby.

He sold that vision to five Canadian financial firms that invested a combined $38 million for a 50 per cent stake in what McLaughlin

called the Mississauga City Development project, which set out to develop 2,600 of McLaughlin’s 4,000 acres.

At the centre of all this activity McLaughlin envisioned a community shopping centre: Square One.

When it opened on October 3, 1973, at a cost of $44 million, Square One was the third-largest shopping mall in the world –and the largest in Canada – with 170 stores across one million square feet of retail space on two floors of air-conditioned comfort. In the centre was Garden Court, with a bandshell, fountains, cinemas – where I spent many Saturdays – and a skating rink in winter.

Developer Bruce McLaughlin strides across the farmland where he envisioned the new city’s centre. (Photo credit: Square One)

Square One today. (Photo credit: Square One)

In those early years there was also a pop-up farmers market every Friday in the parking lot. I remember walking up and down the make-shift aisles created by farmers who would line up their pickups, vans and box trucks, open up the back doors and sell from that week’s fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and eggs.

Most of the farmers didn’t have far to travel because in the early 1970s, there were still family farms in Mississauga, some visible north of Square One.

The original Square One was anchored by Dominion’s grocery store, The Bay, Simpson-Sears (where my mom worked as a switchboard

operator) and Woolco, the latter of which boasted of being the largest Woolco of the firm’s over 4,700 stores worldwide.

Why go big in Mississauga? Because, as Chris Skeats, Woolworth’s real estate director told the Toronto Star; “it is the boomingest area of Canada.”

And boom it did.

Within a decade of becoming a city, Mississauga’s population had grown by 100,000 people to 365,000. In response. Square One expanded, doubling in size to two million square feet, and adding 80 new stores. It also was one of the first malls in Canada to introduce a recycling program.

Today it is the largest mall in Ontario, welcoming over 24 million customers each year.

With over 2 million square feet of retail space, Square One hosts over 330 stores, restaurants and dining options, including the Food District, which resembles a mercantile city market with over 20 vendors offering foods from around the world and weekly pop-up surprises at the District Kitchen.

Square One sits at the heart of Mississauga’s central core, surrounded by condos, homes, businesses and City Hall. It is the primary gathering place for the over 717,000 people who call Canada’s seventh largest city home.

For over 50 years Square One’s role as a place to enjoy life and hang out with friends has helped to build this city.

Square One had an open square when it first opened that included a cascading water fountain and bandstand. (Photo credit: Square One)

The Food district at Square One features over 20 vendors. (Photo credit: Square One)

Square One has been a busy place from the day it opened. (Photo credit: Square One)

Square One was front page national news when it opened. (Photo credit: Square One)

The Art of George Hunter2

George Hunter had an eye for showing us the country.

One of Canada’s most prolific documentary photographers, Hunter’s seven-decade career gave us some of Canada’s most iconic industrial and natural landscapes, celebrating his love of country through his camera lens.

Hunter was born in 1921 in Regina, Saskatchewan and got his start in newspapers, covering the home front during World War II. He worked as a photographer for the National Film Board, which allowed him to travel the country.

However, Hunter wasn’t content to just shoot from the ground –he sought to elevate Canadians understanding of our familiar landscapes via a different perspective.

A licensed pilot, Hunter pioneered the use of aerial photography. As a licensed airplane pilot, Hunter captured breathtaking views of Canada’s north, the Prairies and our coastal regions.

His Mississauga studio, located on Mississauga Road across from the University of Toronto Mississauga campus, was like walking through a contemporary history of Canada. Former Mayor Hazel McCallion was a friend and frequent guest.

There are his shots from the 1940s of Inuit in Canada, photos of miners with their challenging stares, and the work worn hands of fishers hauling in their commercial nets.

He was on site days before Nova Scotia’s Westray Mine exploded, and somewhere over Edmonton he almost fell out his plane. An adventurer ready for his close-up.

Hunter visited over 135 countries and managed to talk his way onto the last plane out of Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion.

In the mid-1950s, his groundbreaking work was featured in Time magazine in a 12-page spread entitled ‘The US After Dark’ which featured images of America’s urban centres gleaming against a dark landscape.

He was one of the first photographers to be inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and his images can be found in dozens of permanent collections at public galleries across Canada. More than one hundred of his photographs are part of the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.

And then there’s Hunter’s work with the Canadian Mint. If you are old enough to remember paying for things with real cash in the 70s and 80s, you once carried a George Hunter image in your wallet.

Two of his photographs graced the Canadian five and ten dollar bills.

The $10 bill from the Scenes of Canada series of the 1970s and 1980s features an engraving of the Polymer Corporation plant in Sarnia, Ontario.

From the heartland to the coast, Hunter’s five dollar image featured a salmon seiner at work, taken at Ripple Point on the Johnstone Strait off the coast of British Columbia.

Hunter was a great believer in the power of image and was a founding member of the Canadian Heritage Photography Foundation. In 2001, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators.

Hunter’s pioneering work in aerial photography charted a path for countless other photographers and artists to find inspiration in elevated perspectives.

Artists such as Saype, the world-renowned visual artist famous for creating ultra-realistic giant paintings.

In October 2024, Saype created “Citizens” in Mississauga’s Community Common Park, depicing a child playing with Kapla blocks, the small wooden planks that Saype and many others played with when they were young. The artwork symbolizes unity and our shared future. A powerful tribute to our city’s anniversary.

Photographer George Hunter. (Photo credit/Museums of Mississauga)

“Citizens” by Saype in Mississauga’s Community Common Park. (Photo credit/Visit Mississauga)

Toronto may be ‘Hollywood North’, but Mississauga has fast become Hollywood North By Northwest.

In the early 1980s, the city provided the backdrop for TV commercials, the long-forgotten CBS TV movie Mad Avenue, and CBC’s Sharon, Lois and Bram.

By 1988, City Hall was charging $2,000 a day for use of the Civic Centre but not everyone was enamoured. Residents complained about traffic congestion and being unable to access City Hall if filming was underway.

BEYOND THE SCREEN

A Film City Emerges IMAX's Impact

If you’re looking for that big cinema look and feel, nothing can compare to Mississauga-based IMAX.

The go-to film technology for blockbusters everywhere got its start thanks to Expo 67 in Montreal after the National Film Board (NFB) commissioned documentarians Graeme Ferguson and Roman Kroitor to create a couple of immersive experimental films.

Despite the initial challenges, Mississauga continued to roll out the red carpet for film crews, such as Canadian director David Cronenberg, who filmed part of the now-classic psychological thriller Dead Ringers here.

Warner Brothers was among the first Hollywood studio to put down stakes in Mississauga, building a 57,000-square foot sound stage on Orwell Street, which it used for David Carradine’s Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.

In 2019 CBS build a 260,000 square-foot production facility near Dixie and Highway 401 where it shoots a number of shows, including Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Discovery.

Other films and TV shows include Priscilla, Law and Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, Anne with an ‘E’, Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities ,Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, RoboCop, RED, A Simple Favor, Station Eleven, Orphan Black, Kick-Ass 2, The Umbrella Academy, The Boys and most recently, M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap and the new Kathy Bates reboot of Matlock.

All this activity makes Mississauga one of the largest film and television clusters in North America.

Based on that success, Ferguson and Kroitor opted to start a new company with businessman Robert Kerr: IMAX, an abbreviation of “Image Maximum.”

IMAX ran its 77mm film through the projector horizontally, creating a much larger frame size and debuted at Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan.

Initially, the company focused on documentaries and educational content. The Rolling Stones: Live at the Max (1991) was the first feature-length film shot entirely in IMAX during the band’s Urban Jungle Tour.

The film was shot on location, flown to New York for processing and then screened at Ontario Place’s IMAX theatre prior to its world premiere at the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles.

Disney’s animated Fantasia 2000 was the first major Hollywood motion picture to be released in IMAX – and then Christopher Nolan came along.

His 2008 Batman sequel The Dark Knight, showcased the technology's potential to enhance narrative storytelling. Audiences were hooked.

IMAX became the go-to film technology for summer blockbusters and big-budget series, such as Marvel's many films, including Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, starring Mississauga’s Simu Liu.

From its Mississauga headquarters, IMAX has shown the world how to go big.

Mississauga City Hall atrium set up for The Handmaid’s Tale. (Photo credit: Mississauga Film and Television Office)

IMAX co-founder and filmmaker Graeme Ferguson. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

KENTUCKY ROOTS, CANADIAN

HEART

The Story of Colonel Sanders

The suits were bespoke and the coleslaw was free for the Kentucky Colonel living west of Dixie.

Harland Sanders, the goateed founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, didn’t just bring his secret recipe to Canada during the post-war boom, he brought his generosity too.

From 1965 until his death at age 90 in 1980, Colonel Sanders, that famous 20th century foodie, lived part of the year in a modest bungalow near the corner of Dixie Avenue and The Queensway, where he purposefully forged a legacy that continues today.

While the primary reason for his move north was to oversee his Canadian operations, Sanders wasn’t just in the business of selling chicken, he was also in the business of giving back.

By the time the 75-year-old Colonel and his wife Claudia moved onto Melton Avenue around the corner from Applewood Plaza, he was already a millionaire, having sold the bulk of his American franchises for $2 million U.S. in 1964. That’s about $19.6M U.S. in current dollars.

He retained control of his Canadian holdings, which he had franchised to Toronto entrepreneur George Gardiner’s Scott’s Hospitality Group in the 1950s.

In 1965, Scott’s came west, opening a Scott’s Chicken Villa on Dundas Street in Erindale, the first of several Mississauga locations.

That same year Sanders and his wife moved to Dixie.

Rather than add to his personal fortune, Sanders channelled some of his earnings into the Harland Sanders Charitable Organization.

So, while the Colonel travelled North America in his signature white suits (made by Toronto’s Walter Beachamp Tailors), his charitable organization was growing too, thanks to the help of Canadian lawyer Terrence Donnelly.

The pair had met at the CNE Food Pavilion during one of the Colonel’s early trips north of the border, and when it came time to negotiate his house purchase, Sanders called up Donnelly.

From there a business and personal friendship was born.

Donnelly helped the Colonel open franchises across Canada, served on the Canadian company’s board of directors, and eventually became head of the Colonel’s charity.

Working all those years with the Colonel influenced Donnelly, so when he became a millionaire in his own right following the sale of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Canadian holdings in 1986 to PepsiCo, he invested in health care too.

In 2011, Donnelly donated $12 million to the University of Toronto Mississauga campus for the Terrence Donnelly Health Sciences Complex, one of three significant gifts to support U of T’s global leadership in healthcare education and research.

The Foundation has also given generously to support children’s health in hospitals across Canada, including to Trillium Health Partners, which created the Colonel Harland Sanders Family Care Centre, at the Mississauga Hospital in 1998.

Now Trillium Health Partners is building Ontario’s first Women’s and Children’s Hospital, part of Canada’s largest hospital, The Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital.

A legacy of giving with connections back to a charismatic Kentucky senior with a silver goatee.

ENJOY THIS STORY? THERE'S MORE TO DISCOVER!

Read the full story at visitmississauga.ca/we-built-this-city Listen to our latest podcast episode at webuiltthiscity.ca

Colonel Sanders waving to the crowd at a parade in Brampton, 1966. (Photo credit: Region of Peel Archives)

HARVESTING DREAMS

The Story of Canada's First Winery

FEEDING A NATION

A Lifeline of Flour & Community

As any start-up founder will tell you, you’ve gotta weather a lot of ‘nopes’ in search of your big break.

That’s as true now as it was in 1859 when Jason De Courtenay wrote to the colonial offices of the Department of Agriculture with a big idea: creating a Canadian wine and silk industry on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Colonial officials may have had their doubts, but De Courtenay did not – and he found a willing investor in Henry Parker, a wine lover who happened to own a large estate near the shores of the Credit River: Clair House.

The pair hit it off and formed a joint stock company with Montrealbased investors, calling themselves the Canada Vine Growers Association and soon after wine-making commenced under the label Clair House winery in Cooksville.

It was Canada’s first commercial vineyard and winery.

Clair House wines won a gold medal at the 1867 Paris Exposition, the only North American wine to do so.

However, despite its success, Clair House battled government tax regulations and protectionist tariffs.

In 1867 the newly formed Dominion Government of Canada’s new Act Respecting Inland Revenue included a clause that charged duty on any distillation agents used to ferment alcoholic beverages. The new duties made the cost of wine-making untenable for De Courtenay who sold the winery in 1869.

Clair House wines continued to attract attention, winning a medal at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial. It produced its last bottles of wine in 1925.

Next time you bite into your favourite sandwich or savour your favourite baked good, look down because the ground you’re walking on has been continuously feeding Canadians for over 200 years.

In the early 1800s, a series of grist mills were built, using early hydro (water) power to turn wheat into flour.

Initially, settlers would have milled flour for themselves, but it wasn’t long before entrepreneurs stepped in to ramp up production and establish an export market to sell the milled flour to Great Britain.

In 1821, Timothy Street, for whom Streetsville is named, built a water-powered grist mill and sawmill, and others soon followed, such as Helen ‘Hetty’ Beatty, one of Mississauga’s earliest female business leaders and entrepreneurs, who ran Beatty Mills in the mid-1800s.

Today Ardent Mills operates the largest soft wheat flour mill in Canada and the second largest in North America on the site of Hetty Beatty’s earlier mill. It’s capable of producing 400,000 kilograms of flour each day.

Streetsville celebrates its milling story each spring at the Streetsville Founders’ Bread and Honey Festival. Initially created in 1973 as a farewell party for the Town of Streetsville as it prepared to amalgamate to form the City of Mississauga, the festival has grown into Mississauga’s largest and longest-running festival.

Millworkers Early 1900s (photo credit: Mississauga Library)

Wine vaults extended close to a quarter of a mile underground beneath the wine barn and the surrounding fields. By the time this photo was taken in the 1930s, Clair House had long ceased to produce wine. All that remains of Canada’s commercial winery is Parkerhill Road, once the driveway to the estate, now a residential street leading in and out of a subdivision bordered by at Confederation Parkway, Hillcrest Avenue and Dundas Street W, near T.L. Kennedy Secondary School in Cooksville. (Photo credit: Region of Peel Archives)

The Ramblers

8CRICKET’S COMEBACK

Cricket used to be a relic of Mississauga’s early colonial past – until Ali Khan came along. In 1966 the 35-year-old Khan was living and working in Mississauga as a chemistry and biology teacher at Gordon Graydon Secondary School, but something was missing.

Originally from Trinidad, Khan was a champion cricket player, member of the Canadian national team and considered by many to be one of the best players of his era.

One of the early teams, ready to take the pitch at Jack Darling Park. (photo credit: Mississauga Ramblers)

However, in the mid-1960s cricket was hardly dominating the front pages of the local paper.

A century earlier cricket had been a popular past time, with players travelling around the region, with Streetsville the team to beat.

However, by the post-war years, cricket had long been supplanted by baseball as the summer sport of choice.

Most residents likely considered cricket more of a genteel pastime from a bygone era – and Khan wanted to change that.

“I think one of the best things about the game is the social aspect,” Khan told a reporter with the South Peel Weekly in 1968. “In other years, when I was playing cricket all over the world, we got to meet various heads-of-state and other celebrities.”

Which is why Khan set out to build a cricket scene in what was about to become the new town of Mississauga.

Initially the team was called the Mississauga Cricket Club when Khan and his friends formed it in 1966. Despite the name, there was no place to play locally, so the club used High Park.

In 1968 the team was renamed the Mississauga Ramblers Cricket Sports and Culture Club and started playing at Jack Darling Park, just off the Lakeshore in Lorne Park.

This wasn’t the first time Khan had set out to build a Canadian cricket scene.

A decade earlier, while studying at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, he introduced cricket on the prairie and help jump start the formation of a provincial team. Then in 1965, he was hired by the Toronto and District Cricket Association as a coach, travelling around the region helping nascent clubs get junior teams started – laying the groundwork for a player development system in cricket.

Now he was ready to get something similar started closer to home.

On April 28 the Mississauga Ramblers played their first home game at Oak Ridges Park, just off Mississauga Road.

They quickly followed up with a game against the Brockville Cricket Club in Port Hope. Khan scored 41 runs, Sam Nakoda hit for 40 runs and team captain Don Payne scored 12 runs. But while Mississauga scored 118 runs, Brockville bested them with 119.

No matter, said Khan, the important thing was that a cricket community was beginning to form.

In 1969 the Ramblers joined the Hamilton and District Cricket League and the following year, the Ramblers got a new home pitch at Shoreline Park, which today we know as Jack Darling Memorial Park, where the Ramblers played until 1993.

For the uninitiated, cricket takes place between two teams of eleven players each. It is a bat-and-ball game played on a grass field, with a flat strip of ground called a pitch. At each end of the pitch is a set of wooden stumps, called a wicket.

Each team takes turns batting and playing the field, just like in baseball.

A bowler, pitches a cork-filled, leather ball and the batter tries to hit the ball to score runs. The bowler is trying to make the batter miss the ball and hit the wickets to record outs. There are three different types of formats of the game: Five-day test matches, One-Day International cricket and Twenty20 International cricket.

In 2005 the Ramblers moved into their current home at Iceland Sports Park, across from the Paramount Fine Foods centre at the corner of Hwy 403 and Eglington Avenue. The Iceland Oval includes five turf pitches, an astro-turf track, sight-screens at both ends and two practice nets.

Today the Ramblers are one of the largest cricket clubs in Ontario, a province where cricket is among the fastest growing sports.

In 2024, the City of Mississauga reported that they received the most requests for two sports: pickleball and cricket.

The championship 1977 team of the Hamilton District Cricket League. (photo credit: Mississauga Ramblers)

Today the Mississauga Ramblers are one of the largest cricket clubs in Ontario. (photo credit: Mississauga Ramblers)

The Don Rowing Club’s Journey to Success

From its place on the western bank at the mouth of the Credit River, the Don Rowing Club seems like it’s a long way from home.

Named for the Don River, which flows through Toronto, the rowing club has been a much-celebrated part of Mississauga’s sports history since the early 1960s.

However, its story begins almost a century earlier.

Back in 1878, a group of young men, including the sons of baker William Christie – of Mr. Christie, you make good cookies fame –decided to establish a club on the banks of the Don River, using an empty house as their clubhouse.

However, finding and keeping space for training grounds and clubhouse proved challenging for the Don Rowing Club.

When the Canadian National Exhibition told the Don in 1958 that it needed to move to make way for its expansion, the club looked west for a new home.

And that’s when Port Credit beckoned.

In September 1961, the club moved into its new home, built by the Credit Valley Lions Club.

Women were welcomed into the Don in the 1970s, and soon they were dominating international podiums.

Kay Worthington moved here to train with Fred Loek, who when he wasn’t working full-time as a photographer with the Mississauga

News coached eight athletes to international acclaim, including Worthington who won two golds at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

And then there were the Laumann sisters.

Older sister Daniele was Canada’s fastest singles sculler in the late 70s and early 80s, winning and earning medals at national and championships here and in the U.S. When younger sister Silken started complaining of shin splints from running track, Daniele suggested she give rowing a try and brought her down to the Don.

Together they would win bronze at the 1984 Olympic games in Los Angeles. It was Silken’s first time on an Olympic podium but of course, it wouldn’t be her last.

Silken Laumann is one of Canada’s most decorated female rowers. She was the first Canadian woman to win a world championship in single sculls in 1991. But it was in 1992 that Silken worked her way into Canadian sports history and made sports fans around the world really sit up and notice.

In May 1992 at a warm up race in Germany, a German boat collided with Silken’s, severing all the muscles, tendons and ligaments from the midpoint of her shin to her ankle.

A year earlier, Silken was considered a shoo-in to win gold; now people doubted she’d even get to the starting line.

On August 3, 1992, Silken Laumann eased into her single skull for the 2,000-metre women’s final.

CTV made a rare middle-of-the-night live broadcast for the race, which went live at 3 a.m. in Mississauga, and attracted an audience equivalent to a Hockey Night in Canada broadcast.

Silken beat the odds and won bronze. She would win one more Olympic medal, a silver at the 1996 Atlanta games.

Team Canada 2024 Under 19 athletes Marianna Jankowski and Elizabeth Najjar are a doubles team to watch, continuing the Don’s championship tradition. (Photo credit: Nicole Borges)

The 1914 Canadian championship team. (photo credit/Don Rowing Club)

GENERATIONS OF CHAMPIONS

The Oldershaws

If you’re a fan of paddling, you know “Missy.”

The Mississauga Canoe Club, founded by Bert Oldershaw in 1958, is quite simply one of the most successful flatwater paddle clubs in Canadian history.

Bert is the only Canadian paddler to reach three successive Olympic finals, in 1948, 1952 and 1956.

His sons, Dean, Reed and Scott all completed for Canada, as did Scott’s son Mark, who won bronze at the 2012 Summer Games in London.

They weren’t the only Missy paddlers to reach international heights.

Marjorie Homer-Dixon was one of the first Missy paddlers to make the national team, competing in the 1968 and 1972 Olympic games.

For the 1976 Montreal games, Missy qualified six paddlers – John Wood, who would win a sliver medal, Gregg Smith and Jeremy Abbott in canoe, the Oldershaw brothers Dean and Reed in kayak and Team Canada head coach Mac Hickox – the most of any Canadian canoe clubs up to that point.

At the turn of this century, brothers Tamas and Attila Buday, sons of former Olympic and World Champion medalist Tamas Buday

HOCKEY HEROES

Charlie Patterson & Arthur Wood’s Impact on Player Safety

coached, the brothers raced as members of Canada’s national team at the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic games.

Today the Mississauga Canoe Club supports athletes of every skill level and continues to compete at the highest level.

In 2024, Missy paddler Katie Vincent, was the first Canadian woman to win gold in canoe-kayak at the Paris Olympics.

Mississauga has produced a lot of hockey superstars but the pair who have had the greatest influence are Cooksville hockey dads Charlie Patterson and Arthur Wood.

Back in the early 1960s, protective hockey gear was a leather football-style covering that hadn’t been updated since the 1920s.

After Patterson’s son Dan suffered a concussion, Patterson started tinkering with helmet designs. Wood, Patterson’s neighbour and Cooksville Hockey Association president was thinking about sports safety too.

As one of Canada’s first pediatric dentists, Wood estimated he treated over 200 ‘bloody chicklets’ (broken teeth) each season.

Patterson knew of European helmets that used rigid plastic. He took that basic design and added ridges on the top and back of the helmet to absorb the impact of a high stick, a bang up against the boards or a fall on the ice.

It sold for six dollars and by 1964 it was being used by Team Canada at the Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria.

Wood designed the accompanying mouthpiece, which he called the ‘mug guard’.

Team Canada wore the safety gear at the 1964 Innsbruck Olympics, the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association made hockey helmets mandatory in 1971, and the NHL mandated helmets for the 1979 season.

‘Don’ and ‘Missy’ in 1967. The two paddling clubs originally shared space on the shore of the Credit River in Port Credit in a building constructed by the Credit Valley Lions Club. (Photo courtesy of the Museums of Mississauga)

A young Lorne Park hockey player straps on Charlie Patterson’s hockey helmet with Art Wood’s mouthguard while Montreal Canadiens’ legend Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard laces up

A TASTE OF HOME

How Mohamad Fakih Built Paramount Fine Foods

Mohamad Fakih is a man who understands the value of a good sparkle.

As the founder of Paramount Fine Foods, Fakih has always emphasized a level of cleanliness in the chain’s restaurants to meet any parent’s discerning approval.

It’s a love for sparkle he likely first developed working as a gemologist in Lebanon before emigrating to Canada in 1999.

Arriving through Pearson International Airport, Fakih knew if he was going to succeed, he’d have to hustle, taking whatever initial jobs came his way, and parlay that into his next opportunity.

He worked the counter at Coffee Time. He slung double doubles at Tim Horton’s. And he manned a watch kiosk at Sherway Gardens where some of that Fakih sparkle attracted the attention of another shop worker, his now-wife, Hanan.

Just a year after arriving, Fakih was manager with La Swisse, a jewerly store chain and soon after he was managing 14 kiosks across the GTA.

It looked like Fakih was set to build a career in Canada using his skills as a gemologist – but life had other plans.

In 2006, Hanan and Fakih were going out with friends and wanted to bring along something that spoke of their Lebanese culture.

Baklava, thought Hanan, and so she sent Fakih out to get some from a little place she knew.

She directed Fakih to Paramount, a Lebanese restaurant she knew of around Dixie Road and Eglington Ave.

The place had seen better days and someone, recognizing Fakih and knowing his story from a recent magazine profile, pointed him out to the exhausted owner, who promptly asked Fakih for a loan to stave off imminent closure.

Fakih left with a box of baklava; the owner got Fakih’s business card, and promptly called Fakih on Monday morning.

After thinking about it, Fakih agreed to loan the man $250,000 –but soon after receiving the money the owner called Fakih to say there was additional debt and the business was going to close.

He offered to give Fakih the money from the sale of the equipment to recoup some of his days-old investment.

Fakih had other ideas. He and his wife were frustrated there was no place to take friends to celebrate and embrace the best of Lebanese culture, so he decided to buy the company.

Today Paramount operates restaurants in Canada, the United States, England and Pakistan.

Fakih's philanthropy is as noteworthy as his business success.

Following the 2017 Quebec City mosque shooting, he paid for the victims' funerals and mosque repairs.

That same year he provided hotel rooms for the homeless during severe weather and has continuously supported efforts to get families off the streets.

In 2018 Mississauga’s sports complex was renamed the Paramount Centre and Fakih was honoured with a spot on Legend’s Row.

In 2021, Fakih was named Canadian CEO of the Year, by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and the Globe and Mail named him Corporate Citizen of the Year.

Fakih was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2022.

The Impact of Mississauga Chinese Centre

The over 30,000 square metre Mississauga Chinese Centre speaks to the history and culture of ancient China, right in the middle of a modern city.

The Centre was championed and financed by the Chinese community in 1986 and when it opened its doors in 1988 it was and remains one of the most unique tourist destinations in Ontario.

Located on Dundas Street, just east of Cawthra Road, you won’t need GPS to locate it thanks to a main entrance gateway that stands 13 metres high, with not a nail in sight, constructed solely by wooden studs and 17,000 cubic metres of wood.

Once inside, you can visit the Soo Chow Garden, a gift from the Jiangsu Provincial Government, an 18-metre tall ‘Fortress at the Great Wall’, modelled after one of the major gateways to the Great Wall of China, and a number stores that specialize in Chinese products and services.

RIDING FOR HEALTH

The Travels of Dr. Dixie

It's about 14 kilometres from Erindale Secondary School to Dixie Outlet Mall which, give or take traffic, will take about 20 minutes to drive.

But on a horse? You'll probably spend more than an hour or two in the saddle.

A replica of the Emperor’s nine dragon wall, the only one in the world located outside Asia. Nine dragon walls are typically found in imperial Chinese palaces and gardens. The number nine symbolizes completeness – as well as representing eternal love at weddings.

In November 1998, the Ontario government recognized the Centre as the first official tourist attraction in Mississauga.

It stands as a testament to the tenacity and entrepreneurial hustle of Mississauga’s Chinese community, which has become the second largest cultural group in Mississauga, with just over 55,000 people, or 8 per cent, of Mississauga residents identifying as Chinese.

Which is where Dr. Beaumont William Bowen Dixie spent a good portion of his 55 years treating the folks who lived in the area we now call Mississauga.

The Welsh-born Dr. Dixie arrived in 1843 and administered medicine and water sanitation advice, travelling from his home in Erindale across the length of modern-day Mississauga, which at the time was just a series of small villages and settlements.

He'd travel by horse, buggy and sleigh, whatever the weather, and he installed a bell on his back porch to alert his driver to harness up the horses, day or night.

Back then, viruses and bacterial infections were deadly, and the good doctor was not immune. Between January 1853 and August 1854, he lost his four children to diphtheria, Anna, Ellenor, Wolston and Willoughby, their deaths marked by four small crosses in Erindale’s St. Peter’s Anglican Cemetery.

Dr. Dixie travelled as far as Grahamsville, located north of Malton in present-day Bramalea, and Syndham, the little village that straddled Etobicoke Creek and his first home and office was called The Grange. It is now home to Heritage Mississauga.

When Dr. Dixie died in 1898 at the age of 72, the residents of Sydenham voted to rename the village in their beloved doctor's honour.

Dixie.

The Mississauga Chinese Centre on Dundas Road. (Photo credit/Visit Mississauga)

Dr. Dixie in his later years. (Photo credit/Heritage Mississauga)

ECHOES OF THE PAST

Trace the Origin of Anishinaabe Heritage

To trace the origins of the word ‘Mississauga’ we need to travel to the shores of a great lake.

But it’s not Lake Ontario where we need to go, it’s 600 kilometres north from Port Credit to the north shore of Lake Huron.

Here we will find the mouth of the Mississagi River and the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe, part of the Ojibwa Nation.

Indigenous people in traditional costumes dance during an event marking National Indigenous Peoples Day in Mississauga, the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, on June 21, 2023. (Photo by Zou Zheng/Xinhua via Getty Images)

The term oumisagai or Mississauga, was first recorded in 1640 by the Jesuits, as the name of the Anishinaabe peoples living in this large region.

It’s also possible that the word Mississauga comes from the Ojibway word ‘Missisaki’, which means ‘river of many mouths.’

Whatever its origins, by the early 18th century, the French referred to all Anishinaabe peoples who lived between Lakes Ontario, Erie and Huron and those on the north shore of Lake Huron as Mississauga.

At this point in history, the Mississaugas controlled much of modern-day Southern Ontario, land they claimed through wartime conquest.

In the mid-1600s, Indigenous nations were at war. The Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, had just defeated the Wendat, also known as the Huron, and began pushing into the territory of the Algonquians, including the territory of the Mississaugas’ on the north shore of Lake Huron.

The Mississaugas and their French allies pushed back, driving the Haudenosaunee to the south shore of Lake Ontario.

Following the negotiation of a peace treaty with the Mohawk Nation, the Mississaugas settled in two groups; one along the Trent River, near present-day Brockville, and the other, in the area of what we now call the Golden Horseshoe, between the Rouge River, which today forms Toronto’s eastern border and the Niagara River, which connects Lake Ontario with Lake Erie.

During this period, the Mississaugas lived in small family groups, fishing during the spring and fall salmon runs, and in summer gathering wild rice and harvesting corn on the Credit River flats.

And so life continued – until that fateful battle, far, far away on the Plains of Abraham. As part of that power shift, a Royal Proclamation was issued that stated only the Crown, not individual settlers, could acquire “Indian lands.”

At first not much changed for the Mississaugas but the American Revolution brought British negotiators to the Mississaugas’ territory. The British Crown began purchasing large tracts of land for the incoming United Empire Loyalists and between 1781 and 1820, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation concluded eight Treaties with the Crown.

Initially the Mississaugas believed these agreements were mutually beneficial, strengthening their relationship with a powerful ally.

Why?

Because the Mississaugas and the British had drastically different concepts about land.

The Mississaugas saw land as a shared community resource; the British viewed it through the lens of absolute ownership.

When the Mississaugas signed those treaties, they thought that the British were going to establish a few settlements along Lake Ontario.

However, by 1791, 20,000 settlers had arrived in Upper Canada –

and the relationship with the Mississaugas was an uneasy one.

On August 2, 1805, Mississaugas and the British Crown signed Provisional Agreement 13A, and ratified it in Treaty 14 the following year.

In it, the British acquired a strip of land, from Etobicoke Creek west to Burlington Bay and north six miles to modern-day Eglinton Avenue.

The British divided it into two areas; Halton Township and Toronto Township, the latter of which became the City of Mississauga.

By the fall of 1826, the Mississaugas moved into their 20 new homes at the Credit River, with another 20 houses to follow.

The village – known as the Credit Mission – was located on Mississauga Road, where the Mississaugua Golf and Country Club is today.

The Mississaugas cleared 900 acres of land for crops and pasture. Community members planted small orchards and raised beef, pork and fowl, built a school, a Methodist church, two sawmills, a blacksmith, a meeting lodge and a hospital.

Despite the success of the Credit Mission, the Mississaugas had decided to leave the Credit River as early as 1840.

The community had spent much of the 1830s trying to secure title, travelling to England to meet with Queen Victoria in 1838.

The Six Nations, after hearing about the Mississaugas predicament, offered them land on their Reserve on the Grand River.

On April 7, 1847, the Mississaugas accepted the Six Nations’ offer and today, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation is a community composed of approximately 2,700 members.

One-third of the community lives on reserve lands while the others mostly live in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area.

The Mississaugas of the Credit continue to be active stewards of the land, water and resources within their territory so the next seven generations of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people may continue to enjoy the land we share.

A sketch of the Credit Mission in the early 1800s. (Photo credit: Heritage Mississauga)

BRICK BY BRICK

The Legacy of Cooksville’s Brickyard 16

At the corner of Dundas and Mavis modern Canada took shape, brick by brick.

Cooksville was home to the largest brick manufacturer in Canada, which, at its height made 300,000 bricks a day that were shipped across the country.

The Cooksville brickyard operated from 1913 to 1991, and was known by Cooksville Shale Brick Company (1922), Cooksville Brick Company Limited (1944), Cooksville Brick and Tile Company (1946), Cooksville La Prairie Brick Company (1953), Domtar (1956) and Canada Brick (1985).

From its earliest days, the brickyard was a major employer of new Canadians – Italians, Croatians, Irish, Russians, Poles and Ukrainians – attracted by the promise of steady employment and available housing.

Quite a few of them lived on the brickyard site in what might have been one of the first housing developments in current-day Mississauga.

To accommodate these new arrivals, the company built housing, beginning with 15 homes and a boarding house, laid out in four rows. Those early homes had electricity but no running water.

In those early years, it was physically exhausting, dangerous work to quarry, mix, shape and bake the bricks in a large kiln that could reach temperatures close to 1,000 degrees Celsius.

In 1913 a man lost his arm to the cogs of the machine that mixed and pulped the clay.

The following year four men died when they fell 75 feet from atop a scaffold, and in 1924, a massive fire swept through the plant, causing a nationwide brick shortage at the height of the summer building season.

By then Brickyard Village, as it was known, had expanded to include 35 families, while the plant employed close to 350 men –almost half the population of Cooksville.

There were also multiple boarding houses, some operated by Croatian women. While the men laboured in the plant, women laboured in the Village to clean, feed and clothe the workers, often washing the overalls in gasoline to rid them of the fine clay dust.

By the 1950s, a vibrant social scene had developed, with the brickyard sponsoring baseball, soccer and football teams and an orchestra.

Brickyard workers also ventured out, opening retail businesses, such as Dominic Carmoni and Michael Torchia who opened the area’s first Italian Groceteria in 1956 on Hook Avenue, selling imported coffee, olive oil, meats and pasta.

After the brickyard closed, Jannock Properties invested $45 million in the mid-1990s to remediate, grade and prepare the land for a new generation of residents.

Today the area is home to shops, townhouses and single-family homes on streets such as Claymeadow Avenue and Clayhill Road, which borders Brickyard Park.

The 26-acre park includes community baseball, softball and soccer fields, a cricket batting cage, a playground and a multi-use trail. It also features a brick relief sculpture of an eagle forged by Mississauga artist and former brickyard stone cutter Angelo Belluz that was originally commissioned for the brickyard office.

Art and a park that salutes and remembers the workers and families who helped to build this city.

Driver Harry Auld with machinist Bob Cox with Cooksville Shale and Brick horse team in 1925. (Photo credit/Mississauga Library)

Promotional artwork for the Cooksville Brick and Tile Company. (Photo credit/Region of Peel Archives)

A Journey Through Time Along the Credit River

Mississauga’s major roadways tend to run as straight as rulers, except for one: Mississauga Road.

It follows a more natural trajectory along the west side of the Credit River because unlike the other major thoroughfares that crisscross the city, Mississauga Road has a much older story to tell.

A story about the land and the people who have lived here continuously for over 10,000 years: the Mississaugas of the Credit.

The road that now bears their name is their former trail, which the Mississaugas used to move with the seasons.

APPLEWOOD ACRES

18 17

The Birth of a Suburban Dream

It was while driving along the QEW in 1950, past the apple orchards near Cawthra Avenue that a 20-something Harold Shipp got an idea.

The son of successful Etobicoke home builder Gordon Shipp, Harold thought, let’s not just build homes, let’s build a whole town.

He called it Applewood Acres.

In 1951 he purchased 23 acres south of the QEW for $43,000 and built the first 108 homes.

The Shipps ended up building close to 900 homes on either side of the highway and bordered by Burnhamthorpe, Cawthra and Etobicoke Creek.

They travelled down to the mouth of the Missinnihe as it was known to the Mississaugas, where they would fish during the spring and autumn salmon runs, and in summer gather wild rice and harvest corn on the river flats.

Then they’d follow their well-travelled route north to spend the winter inland, away from the bitter cold of Lake Ontario.

When the French traders arrived in the 1700s, they traded with the Mississaugas at the mouth of the river, supplying goods on credit against furs to be delivered the following spring.

That’s why the French called it the Rivière au Crédit. When the British arrived in the early 1800s they anglicized it, Credit River.

The Credit Valley Conservation Authority honours Mississauga Road and the Credit River’s Indigenous origins with the Credit Valley Trail, a 100-kilometre path that when completed will connect Mississauga with Caledon, Halton Hills and Brampton through the Credit River Valley, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas.

Then came the town. The Shipps built a neighbourhood school, parks and the Applewood Village Shopping Centre. At the time it was the largest single subdivision built by a family developer in Canada.

To market Applewood, Shipp placed the model home in the midst of an orchard in bloom and furnished it with life-sized mannequins – a dad, a mom and a couple of kids. He took out full page ads in the newspaper, the first home builder to do so.

He rented airplanes to fly advertising banners above the city, and for a Christmas-time promotion, he tied a big red bow around a house.

Sales went through the roof.

Young families in Toronto were eager to purchase a single-family home on a large lot. The houses ranged in price from $16,000 to $18,000. The Shipps sold 126 homes in 10 days.

The era of the Canadian suburb had begun, launched by the Shipps.

Mississauga Road crosses Dundas Street in Erindale (Photo credit: Region of Peel Archives)

Harold Shipp in Mississauga’s rising city centre. (photo credit/Mississauga’s Legends Row)

BUILDING HOPE

A Hospital Born from Community Spirit 19

No gift is too small when regular folk rally around a big idea.

That’s what happened in 1954 when residents staged a community fundraising blitz to build the South Peel Hospital, the first to serve the residents of Port Credit, Clarkson, Lorne Park, Erindale, Streetsville and Malton.

Over 1,500 volunteers, many of them nurses, went door-to-door, asking people to donate what they could. Their goal: to raise $150,000 in two weeks. That’s the equivalent of about $1.7 million in today’s dollars.

The fundraising appeal became a true community event. Over 50 organizations stepped up to participate, and it attracted support from young and old.

There was $62 from the Cooksville Lawn Bowling Club. Mrs. Sicinski delivered a $100 cheque from Branch 26 of the Polish Alliance. So did the student committee of Central Public School in Lakeview, and the women’s alliance of Cooksville United Church gave $100, raised through their bazaars and bake sales.

Service station owner Jim Wylie of Clarkson donated his all his Saturday profits – $200 – to the campaign. When asked why he had given so generously he cited a car accident he had witnessed in front of his business on Lakeshore Road.

“That little girl was taken by ambulance to Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial hospital but they didn’t have room to treat her and she had to be taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto. We need that hospital out here.”

And Port Credit High School students raised $300 by selling ribbons, tickets to their Mardi Gras dance and some of the girls took part in a charity auction with the –umm, lucky fellas – being treated to lunch the next day.

There was even a play created, called ‘Babies Can’t Wait’, written by Mrs. Evelyn Crickmore of Erindale and produced by Mrs. Helen Kendall of Port Credit.

The door-to-door canvassing blitz raised $168,260.60.

Another $200,000 came from the provincial and federal governments, $87,000 from local businesses and $12,000 from the sale of 22 acres along Upper Middle Road.

Citizens approved municipal debentures, including $15,000 from the Town of Streetsville, $110,000 from the Town of Port Credit and just over $1 million from Toronto Township.

Local people had been lobbying for their own hospital since the 1940s but the campaign became more urgent in 1952 after a 16-year-old had died while enroute to a Toronto hospital.

At the time, Port Credit and Toronto Township residents existed in a no-man’s land of hospital services.

Toronto’s St. Joseph’s Hospital was located 18 kilometres east, Oakville Trafalgar Hospital was 19 kilometres to the west, and Peel County Memorial, was 21 kilometres north.

“The need for the new hospital has been emphasized over and over again,” said former Ontario premier and hospital board honourary chair Thomas Laird Kennedy.

“The good people of South Peel know the seriousness of the situation and I believe they will greet the canvassers generously.”

Builders broke ground at the corner of Highway 10 and Upper Middle Road, now The Queensway on Friday the 13th, April 1956 with 44 students from every school in South Peel invited to participate.

Almost two years later – on May 4th, 9,000 people showed up for the grand opening of their new $2 million, five-storey, 125-bed hospital.

On May 19th, 18-year-old Anne Beatty became patient #1.

According to the Toronto Star, which documented the event, she “rode from her home to the hospital in the ambulance of G.F. Skinner, one of the charter members of the board.”

She was there to have her tonsils out.

South Peel was renamed the Mississauga Hospital on January 1, 1970; the same day Toronto Township became the Town of Mississauga.

Fast forward to 2024 and health care is front and centre once again. Trillium Partners is building the $2-billion Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital, Ontario’s largest hospital, at the corner of Hurontario and Queensway, which includes Ontario’s first Women’s and Children’s Hospital, spanning two floors of the Mississauga Hospital.

A new Seniors Campus of Care on Speakman Drive in Mississauga in under construction, beginning with long-term care homes, operated by Partners Community Health, a new not-for-profit organization.

Finally, the Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre, which will specialize in complex continuing care and rehabilitation services is being built on the other side of Etobicoke Creek, on land once part of the village of Dixie.

All this to serve a population of around a million people in Mississauga and West Toronto, over half of whom were born outside Canada, with over a million more people expected to move into the area by 2041.

Trillium HealthWorks is the largest health infrastructure renewal project in Canada’s history.

It’s all about people caring for people, just as it was in the 1950s.

A screenshot of a TV commercial in support of the South Peel Hospital. (photo credit/Trillium Health Partners)

The South Peel Hospital’s Ladies Auxiliary sewing hospital linens, circa 1950s. (Photo credit/Museums of Mississauga)

A nurse and baby at The Mississauga Hospital. (Photo credit/ Bert Hoferichter, MPA)

An artist’s rendering of the new Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital. (photo credit/Trillium Health Partners)

An artist’s rendering of the new Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital. (photo credit/Trillium Health Partners)

Lakeview Munitions

Factory

Legacy

When Second World War Allied soldiers marched into battle it’s likely many were armed by the women of Lakeview.

Between 1941 and 1945, the Dominion Small Arms Limited munitions factory at the foot of Dixie Road and Lakeshore manufactured over a million machine guns, rifles and pistols.

At the height of production, Dominion employed 5,300 workers, two-thirds of them women. Like other wartime manufacturing efforts, housing was required to attract workers to Lakeview, then a small rural village. Federal Crown corporation Wartime Housing Limited constructed 200 prefabricated homes and a dormitory that housed 422 women.

Post-war, the company changed its name to Canadian Arsenals Limited and began making vehicle parts. The factory closed in 1974.

In 2017 the City of Mississauga purchased and converted the Small Arms Inspection Building (Building #12) into a creative hub for artists and groups, with programming delivered by local non-profit Creative Hub 1352.

A ROYAL ROAD

Birth of the Queen Elizabeth Way 20 22

In 1925 the Ontario government announced a new road, twice as wide, would be built between Toronto and Burlington to ease congestion on Highway 2/Lakeshore Road. By 1934 the plans had morphed into something grander: a dual-lane divided highway.

When it opened in 1937 the Middle Road Highway was the first intercity divided highway in North America and boasted Canada’s first cloverleaf interchange at Hurontario Road.

Two years later, on June 7, 1939, Queen Elizabeth and her husband, King George VI, officially opened the highway and its new name: Queen Elizabeth Way.

The QEW was the first fully illuminated highway in the world, with art deco-styled lamp posts with the familiar swooping ‘ER’ logo for Elizabeth Regina, Latin for Queen Elizabeth.

Post-war, new suburban developments such as Park Royal and Applewood Acres, were built adjacent to the QEW. Suburban Canada was taking shape thanks to the Queen of all highways.

Onlookers stand at the base of what will be one of the massive footings for the Queen Elizabeth Way’s Credit River bridge in 1934. (Photo credit/Port Credit Library Collection)

An early photograph, circa 1940, of the first cloverleaf interchange in Canada at QEW and Hurontario. Built in 1937, the QEW originally ran beneath Hurontario. It wasn’t until 1962 when the current cloverleaf was built with the now familiar Hurontario underpass – upon which Mississauga’s LRT line will run. (Photo credit/Port Credit Library Collection)

Over two-thirds of Dominion Small Arms’ employees were women. (Photo credit/Heritage Mississauga)

Moccasin Identifier Initiative

Elder Carolyn King, former chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit, is a long-time advocate for strong relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

One of her many projects is the Moccasin Identifier Project, which worked with Indigenous artist Philip Cote, to design four moccasin stencils – representing the Anishinaabe, the Huron Wendat, the Seneca and the Cree.

Since 2021, the Moccasin Identifier Project has stencilled images at culturally significant sites to promote the GTA’s diverse Indigenous cultures and the strong ties Indigenous communities have to the land. This includes Lakeshore Road in Mississauga and the Credit Valley Conservation office.

To date, the project has visited over 1,000 schools, universities, workshops and major events.

The vision is to cover Canada in moccasins to remind Canadians of the people who have walked the land for thousands of years and who gave Mississauga its name.

King was inducted into Mississauga’s Legends Row in 2019.

The Spy Who Lived in Port Credit 21 23

Imagine discovering that your family’s story is a lie that your parents purposely told to keep you safe from a curious public – and dangerous foreign agents.

It’s the stuff of spy novels, except for the eight Krysac siblings upon learning their parents weren’t post-war Czech immigrants living a quiet life in Port Credit.

In reality they were Svetlana and Igor Gouzenko, at one time the most famous Soviet defectors in the world.

Igor, a cipher clerk in the Soviet Embassy, was the first to reveal an extensive Soviet spy network operating in Canada, the United States and Great Britain.

The Gouzenko Affair heralded the start of the Cold War in the public’s mind and influenced post-war espionage and foreign relations.

Igor died in 1982; Svetlana in 2001 and both were buried in unmarked graves in Clarkson’s Springcreek Cemetary.

A tombstone bearing the Gouzenko name was erected in 2002.

THE GOUZENKO SECRET

A rare photo of Igor and Svetlana Gouzenko, in 1975. (Photo by Bob Olsen/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

A Moccasin stencil in Celebration Square. (Photo credit/City of Mississauga)

We’ve been playing golf in Mississauga for close to 150 years and among our best is Gayle Hitchens Borthwick, Canada’s most successful amateur female golfer.

Originally from Saskatchewan, Borthwick has called Mississauga home for over 50 years, playing out of the Toronto Golf and Country Club, located on Dixie Road in Long Branch, for the past 37 years.

Borthwick’s illustrious career is punctuated by an impressive tally of three U.S. Senior titles, victories at the Canadian Amateur and Canadian Senior, and many provincial championships. She is the only golfer to win all four national amateur titles – Canadian Junior, Canadian Amateur, Canadian Mid-Amateur and Canadian Senior Amateur.

She’s played on national teams for over three decades, from the 1963 Commonwealth Games team to World Amateurs Team Captain in 1996.

Plus, she holds the Credit Valley Golf and Country Club ladies competitive record with a score of 70.

Well played, Gayle.

SCIENCE MEETS INDUSTRY

Golfing Triumph of Gayle Borthwick Impact of Sheridan Park Research Community 24 26

For $30,000/acre you could buy a piece of the future.

Sheridan Park Research Community opened in 1965 to capitalize to on the emerging technological revolution.

It was and remains one of the only research communities in the world managed by industry to advance private-sector research and development.

The Ontario government prepped the land, installing water, sewage, electricity and gas underground on 350 acres along the QEW’s north side, between Erin Mills Parkway and Winston Churchill Blvd.

By 1969, over 1,600 scientists, engineers, technicians and support staff worked at the Park for original landowners Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL), British-American Oil, Inco, Comico, Abitibi, Mallory Batteries, Warner-Lambert, Dunlop, and the Ontario Research Foundation.

It boasted research in metallurgy, chemistry, fundamental and applied physics, textile science, and applied microbiology, access to an extensive library – and computers.

Sheridan Research Park continues to be a centre of private sector R&D.

Gayle Borthwick at play. (Photo credit/Mississauga’s Legend’s Row)

Sheridan Research Park shortly after it opened in 1968. (Photo courtesy Mississauga Library)

Evolution of Ontario’s Lakeshore Road

Picture this: early motor enthusiasts are going for drives along gravel and dirt roads designed for horses and buggies, both in terms of comfort and maximum speed.

It’s an unpleasant experience, so road planners set to work to create Ontario’s first road specifically designed for automobiles, following some of the former Indigenous pathways, now Colonial-era concessions roads hugging the shore of Lake Ontario.

In 1914 the Lakeshore Road opened between Toronto and Hamilto, passing through Clarkson, Port Credit, Long Branch and Lakeview.

The project had two lasting effects. First, it converted Lakeshore Road into Ontario’s first paved intercity road. Second, the Department of Public Highways was created.

In 1925, Lakeshore Road was renamed Highway 2 and connected with highways in Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, to traverse eastern Canada from Windsor, ON to Halifax, NS.

It remained Canada’s primary east-west thoroughfare until Highway 401 opened in 1968.

SOCIAL NOTICES

27

Mississauga’s 1930's Social History

In August 1938, Mrs. Clark of Third Line was ill at home with neuritis, Allan Couse of Streetsville spent the weekend at Midland, and Venetian blinds “added greatly to the appearance of the Royal Bank” in Cooksville.

These were some of the over 60 notices published in The Port Credit Weekly’s regular social page, which ran every week for decades, keeping neighbours updated on what was happening with the people in their neighbourhoods.

Collected and edited by women, social notices informed readers about the activities of social clubs, such as the Ladies Auxilliary, Brownies, Scouts, the Kiwanis Club, and the Lion’s Club. Readers learned about fundraising drives by Church groups, school science fair winners, who attended bridal and baby showers, and who won this week’s neighbourly Bridge club.

Taken together, social notices flesh out life in Toronto Township and the early days of Mississauga of life in our neighbourhoods.

The Toronto and Hamilton Highway, now known as the Lakeshore, under construction, the first paved road in Ontario. This photo was taken between 1914 and 1917. (Photo credit/ Port Credit Library Collection)

A postcard looking westward on the Lakeshore featuring Hooper’s Rexall Drug Store, a Port Credit landmark celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2024. This image is from the mid1920s, shortly after Hooper’s opened. (Photo credit/Port Credit Library Collection)

Pre-Internet, social notices kept people informed about the little things in life. (Photo credits/Museums of Mississauga)

BUILDING A NEW CITY

The Transformation of Mississauga 28

Developer Bruce McLaughlin had a knack for seeing into the future. In 1958, just as the old Malton Airport was taking flight as the modern Toronto International Airport, McLaughlin saw a city rising up out of the farms and fields north of Burnhamthorpe Road.

Over the next decade, McLaughlin bought a massive block of land, over 4,000 acres, framed by Wolfdale Avenue, Highway 401 and Cawthra Avenue. It was the start of his grand project: to build Ontario’s next big city centre.

At the time, demand for single-family homes was soaring, at an average price of $45,000 – which would be just under $313,000 in today’s dollars.

Toronto’s growing and affluent middle-class, many of them recent immigrants or first-generation Canadians, were looking to move out of smaller Toronto homes, and began looking west for homes with backyards and nearby parks to raise their kids.

Real estate agents catered to these new arrivals with ads that touted the wonders of the brand new city to the west.

“Reside free for six months!” promised an ad in a Portuguese paper. “Most of the homes are located quite far from the main arteries so that you may feel as being living in a rural area –although you are actually at the heart of one of the most fastgrowing metropolitan areas!”

In 1982, the City held a national architectural competition to design and build a new city hall that reflected quote “a period of rapid growth during which a rural hinterland has been transformed into one of the fastest growing centres in Canada.”

The winning design – selected from 246 submissions – came from architects Michael Kirkland and Edward Jones. Both were from

elsewhere, Kirkland from the U.S. and Jones from Great Britain, and Jones had always been struck by the ubiquity of Ontario’s farmhouses, with their silos, barns and tree-lined drives.

And so, they offered the new city a fresh take on its history; modern lines that reflect the old family farm.

The main building with large central doors and sloping roof looks like a stretched out barn, complete with a hayloft window beneath the peak. Rising behind it is the farm house-now office tower, a clock tower to resemble the weather vane and the old grain silo, now City Council chambers.

The building opened in July 1987 and today is considered one of the best examples of post-modern architecture in Canada.

In 1991, the Mississauga Central Library was added to the site, and in 2021 it was renamed the Hazel McCallion Central Library and in late 2023 completed a major renovation that created a four-floor sky lounge, increased public spaces and became completely barrier-free.

The latest addition to the City’s central public space was Celebration Square in 2011, a multi-purpose, state-of-the-art outdoor venue that includes a main stage, amphitheatre, trellised market area, greenspace, large reflecting pool and a central fountain that converts into an ice rink in winter.

It attracts over 750,000 visitors annually, spotlighting our city on the rise.

ENJOY THIS STORY? THERE'S MORE TO DISCOVER!

Read the full story at visitmississauga.ca/we-built-this-city Listen to our latest podcast episode at webuiltthiscity.ca

Developer Bruce McLaughlin. (Photo courtesy Mississauga’s Legends’ Row)

A September 1988 model of the Mississauga Civic Centre, with the proposed new Central Library and the area surrounding it. (Photo courtesy of Mississauga Library)

Avro Canada and the Jet Revolution

The invention of the jet engine revolutionized aircraft design and put Mississauga at the forefront of the aerospace industry.

Following the end of the Second World War, British manufacturer Hawker Siddeley Group purchased Malton-based Victory Aircraft, renaming it A.V. Roe Canada Ltd, also known as Avro Canada.

By 1958 Avro Canada, based in Malton, was the country’s third largest company, employing over 14,000 people.

It was through Avro Canada that Canada entered the jet age, on the strength of the Avro Jetliner and the Avro CF-100 Canuck, Canada’s first and only mass-produced jet fighter.

The onset of the Cold War demanded even faster, more powerful, and higher-flying interceptors.

REACHING FOR THE STARS

30 29

SPAR Aerospace & the Space Race

Avro Canada wasn’t the only aviation company to set up shop in Malton.

As the global space race took off, Malton-based SPAR became increasingly involved in the burgeoning field of aerospace technology.

In the 1960s engineers at de Havilland Aircraft of Canada Ltd. wanted space to innovate so the Special Projects and Applied Research division was created to explore innovations in space technology, satellite communications, and advanced engineering. They called it SPAR for short.

In 1967 it became its own company: SPAR Aerospace Limited. The company quickly gained recognition for its expertise in space technology and robotics, developing numerous components for communications satellites and scientific instruments for space research. Then NASA came calling.

The Avro Arrow, or CF-105, was Avro Canada's response to this need.

With its delta wing design, it was a leap ahead in aerodynamics, speed, altitude, and armament. The Avro Arrow represented the cutting-edge of aviation technology.

It was the pride of Malton and of Canada…but as any student of Canadian history will tell you, the federal government under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker killed the program in 1959, citing cost overruns and U.S. pressure to focus on missile defence systems rather than interceptor aircraft.

While the Avro Arrow's cancellation was a bitter pill for the Canadian aerospace industry, the technological advances and lessons played a significant role in what was to follow: space, the next frontier.

It’s the 1970s and NASA throws down a gauntlet of cosmic proportions — asking Canada to create an arm strong enough to grapple satellites and dance with stars aboard its new Space Transportation System, the space shuttle.

In 1981 the world watched as the Canadarm — a marvel of engineering — gently unfurled into space. For Canadians watching, the Canadarm wasn’t just a piece of technology; it was a symbol, a marker of Canadian pride.

And we have Mississauga's John MacNaughton to thank for showing us how to wave the maple leaf proudly in space.

He pitched the Canadarm idea so effectively that the government thought it was their own.

Before long, every time the shuttle's cameras broadcast the Canadarm at work, millions of viewers saw the red "Canada" logo, a testament to MacNaughton's branding genius.

The AVRO Arrow. (Photo credit/Region of Peel Archives)

The Canadarm at work. (Photo credit/Canadian Space Agency)

AVIATION LEGACY YYZ

It’s more than just an airport code; it’s part of the GTA’s identity, but while Toronto might be in its name, those three distinctive letters anchor it in Mississauga.

Back in the days of rail, morse code was the primary means of communication up and down the line for the Canadian National Railway, which used two-letter identifiers for each station.

The view from the Hammerhead at the end of Pier F in Terminal 3. (Photo credit/Toronto Pearson Airport)

The farming community of Malton was ‘YZ’ and years later when a group of investors bought up some nearby farms to build an airport, the code was passed on. The extra Y was added to denote that this was a Canadian destination.

It all started in 1937 when the Toronto Harbour Commission sent land agents to this small farming community on the outskirts of the city with a very important mission.

They were tasked with purchasing 13 farms so that a quote ‘million dollar, world class airport,’ can be built on 1,410.8 acres. The Chapman farmhouse served as the first airport terminal.

The Malton Airport officially opened on August 29, 1939, just days before the outbreak of World War II.

Initially, it served as a base for the Royal Canadian Air Force, and it played a crucial role during the war, acting as a training ground for air crews and a hub for aircraft manufacturing.

Most of the land was for the airport, but 108 acres was set aside for National Steel Car, which opened a manufacturing plant in 1938 to build bombers for the impending war.

As Canada’s aerospace industry was taking off, so too was commercial air travel.

In the post-war years, Malton Airport transitioned to a public airport, catering to the growing demand for commercial aviation. The 1950s and 1960s marked a period of significant expansion and modernization. In 1958, the airport was renamed Toronto International Airport, reflecting its increasing importance in international air travel. This era saw the construction of new terminals, runways, and facilities to accommodate larger aircraft and an increasing volume of passengers.

One of the most transformative milestones in the airport's history occurred in 1964 with the opening of the new Terminal 1, known as the Aeroquay. This innovative circular terminal was designed to improve the efficiency of passenger processing and set new standards in airport design. However, as air travel continued to grow exponentially, it became clear that further expansion was necessary.

The 1970s and 1980s were marked by further growth and modernization efforts. In 1970, Terminal 2 opened to handle the surge in passenger traffic.

Then, in 1984, the airport underwent a significant rebranding effort and was renamed Lester B. Pearson International Airport, honoring one of Canada's most esteemed Prime Ministers.

The most ambitious expansion project came in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the development of the new Terminal 1, which was designed to replace both the original Terminal 1 and Terminal 2.

The new Terminal 1, one of the largest in the world, officially opened in 2004 and featured state-of-the-art facilities and technologies to enhance passenger experience and operational efficiency. This project represented a major milestone in the airport's history, setting it up to handle the demands of the 21st century.

The 10-year, $4.4 billion expansion also included extended runways and the UP Express connect Pearson with Toronto’s Union Station in just 25 minutes.

Over the years, Pearson has continued to evolve, embracing technological advancements and expanding its capacity to meet the growing demands of global air travel. It has implemented numerous initiatives to improve passenger experience, including the introduction of automated passport control, enhanced security measures, and a wide range of dining and shopping options.

Today, Toronto Pearson International Airport is a critical hub for international and domestic air travel, serving as a gateway between Canada and the rest of the world.

It is Canada’s largest airport in terms of total passenger traffic and North America’s second largest in terms of international traffic. With daily non-stop flights to many of the world’s economies, we move people and goods across the country, the continent and around the globe.

It handles over 50 million passengers annually and offers flights to more than 180 destinations worldwide.

MRS. A

32

Canada's First Culinary Influencer

Kate Aitken's rise as one of Canada’s first international influencers was smooth as butter.

Butter tarts to be precise.

Aitken, or Mrs. A as she was known to her legions of fans, was the original lifestyle influencer, with a reach that extended coast to coast to coast.

At her height, Mrs. A had an estimated three million listeners, and she employed 21 secretaries to answer her fan letters – about 260,000 annually.

And she ran it all from Sunnybank Acres, her 10-acre property on Mississauga Road, just north of Burnhamthorpe.

Aitken was Canada’s most famous female broadcaster from the 1930s through to the late 1950s – and her popularity was so strong that her cookbooks are still sought after by home cooks.

As a young wife and parent raising two daughters on the family farm, Aitken established a successful poultry business that she and her husband expanded to include an extensive garden, orchards and dairy products.

She was such an expert at canning and preserving the Canadian and Ontario departments of agriculture hired her to teach other farm women home economics.

And that’s when Canada’s media industry came calling.

It was the Great Depression of the 1930s and Aitken frugal meal planning and preparation was precisely what women were looking for as they sought to stretch their family’s dollars.

She began touring North American hosting cooking classes. An American railway executive hired her to establish canning centres – micro-businesses for farm women who could sell their products to the trains as they passed through, for use in the dining cars.

Then she landed at the CNE where she hosted “Country Kitchen.” She would go on to become the Director of Women’s Activities at the CNE.

By the 1940s, she was one of the top personalities on Toronto’s top-rated CFRB radio, a role she held for 23 years. Her show was syndicated to other stations and eventually picked up by CBC in 1948, appearing for nine years on the Good Neighbour Show.

Mrs. A had gone national.

Aitken’s radio programs focused on homemaking subjects such as cooking and etiquette, but she was also known for her documentary journalism, for instance she interviewed world leaders like Eleanor Roosevelt and Benito Mussolini.

She even started a spa business on her property, long before ‘selfcare’ became big business.

Aitken retired from broadcasting in 1957, but her work didn't stop there. She remained active, working for the United Nations Association in Canada, volunteered at the South Peel Hospital (now the Mississauga Hospital) and serving on the CBC's board of directors.

She also wrote columns for the Globe & Mail and continued to publish bestselling cookbooks. "Kate Aitken's Canadian Cookbook," was so popular it was reissued in 2004 – a testament to Aitken’s universal and eternal appeal.

Aitken passed away in 1971, at the age of 81 in Mississauga.

Whenever you savour a butter tart or enjoy a perfect potato salad on a summer’s day, remember Kate Aitken – Canada’s original influencer who helped shape Canadian tastes.

Kate Aitken in 1966 with music boxes she picked up on her travels.

(Photo credit: Norman James/Toronto Star)

VICTORY VILLAGE Building Hope

The next time you’re in the air over Pearson International Airport look down at the small houses that hug the northern boundary because this is where one of Canada’s biggest national projects began.

In the early 1940s Malton’s Victory Aircraft was tasked with producing Avro Lancaster bombers for the Second World War. There was just one problem; there was no place for workers to live.

In response, the Canadian government created Wartime Housing Limited, a Crown agency, and hired architects and builders to quickly design and construct hundreds of small homes, named Victory Houses, near training and manufacturing sites across the country.

Malton’s Victory Village had 200 homes for the workers who helped build 420 ‘Lancs’ between 1942 and 1945. Women dominated the assembly lines, working as welders, riveters and testers.

Today the neighbourhood remembers its past glory via Victory Crescent, Churchill Avenue, Lancaster Avenue and Victory Park.

WINGS OVER LONG BRANCH

34 33

Legacy of Canada’s First Aerodrome

In 1915, the skies over Long Branch began to buzz with a new kind of bird—airplanes!

The Curtiss Flying School, a branch of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, opened Canada's first aerodrome run by John Alexander Douglas McCurdy – the first pilot in the British Empire.

McCurdy is famous for being the first to pilot Alexander Graham Bell’s Silver Dart in Baddeck, Nova Scotia but he was no oneflight wonder. He was Canada's first licensed pilot, the first person in the world to make a figure 8 in the sky, the first person to send a wireless message from the air, the first person to demonstrate dropping bombs from the sky and the first person in Canada and the British Empire to be issued a pilot’s licence. Until the day he

died, McCurdy held Licence Number 1.

In Long Branch McCurdy converted a grassy expanse into the hatching ground for World War I airmen. With aircraft like the Curtiss JN-4 "Jenny," the aerodrome buzzed with young pilots, all beneficiaries of the Baddeck legacy.

In 1916, the Imperial Munitions Board bought Curtiss (Canada) and renamed it Canadian Aeroplanes Ltd., to manufacture the Avro 504, among the most popular and widely used aircraft of the First World War.

During the First World War, the Long Branch Aerodrome served as the training ground for the Royal Flying Corps, preparing over 300 pilots under the tutelage of John McCurdy, Canada’s Pilot #1.

An architect’s design for a Wartime Housing Limited home in Victory Village. (Photo credit: Region of Peel Archives)

Civilian employees test a parachute in Malton before it is packed and shipped for the war effort, March 1945.

(Photo credit: Toronto Star archives)

An employee of Victory Aircraft in Malton at work building a Lancaster bomber, March 1945.

(Photo credit: Norman James/Toronto Star)

Student pilots at the Long Branch Aerodrome during WWI. (Photo credit/Andrew van Nostrand)

ROBERT J. SAWYER

Voice of Canadian Science Fiction 35

Robert J. Sawyer revels in asking the big questions.

The dean of Canadian science fiction, having penned 24 novels that have taken us to space, into the future and explored an alternate reality where atomic bomb inventor J. Robert Oppenheimer is a saviour rather than a destroyer of worlds.

But Sawyer’s no space cowboy.

Through his novels, short stories and essays he explores life’s big scientific, philosophical and ethical questions.

His work often grapples with questions about artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the potential futures of the human race.

Sawyer occupies a special place in the contemporary literary universe.

He is one of only eight writers in history and the only Canadian to win all three major science fiction awards.

In 1996, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America awarded him the Nebula for The Terminal Experiment.

In 2003, he won the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo award for his novel Hominids, and, for his novel Mindscan, he was honoured with the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2006.

In 2009, ABC TV converted his novel FlashForward into a TV series that ran for two seasons, with Sawyer as scriptwriter.

Between 2010 and 2012, he won the Aurora, for Canada’s best Science Fiction and Fantasy novel, for each of the novels in his ‘WWW’ series, Wake, Watch and Wonder.

He’s hosted Vision TV’s Supernatural Investigator series, and the lifelong Trekkie wrote the two-part series finale for the popular web series Star Trek continues.

Beyond his novels, Sawyer has contributed to the science fiction genre through numerous short stories and essays.

He also contributes to the academic study of science fiction, offering insights into the genre’s role in examining the human condition through speculative scenarios.

The release schedule for his latest novel The Downloaded illustrates Sawyer’s immense popularity. It went into a second printing based on pre-sales alone and Amazon negotiated an exclusive six-month release for the book on its Audible audiobook platform.

The Downloaded features an A-list cast of Canadian voice actors, led by 2022 Best Actor Oscar winner Brendan Fraser (The Whale/The Mummy trilogy), along with Emmy winner Luke Kirby (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Colm Feore (The Umbrella Academy), Andrew Phung (Run the Burbs/Kim’s Convenience) and Vanessa Sears, star of the Canadian production of Kinky Boots.

In addition to his writing, Sawyer is known for his advocacy for science fiction as a legitimate and valuable form of literature and its ability to show us a more peace-filled, accepting world.

Among some of his most meaningful work, Sawyer has conducted citizenship ceremonies for new Canadians from his home base of Mississauga.

In 2016, Sawyer became a member of the Order of Canada and the following year was inducted into Mississauga’s Legend’s Row.

Robert J. Sawyer host of Vision TV’s Supernatural Investigator.

(Photo Credit/Carolyn Clink)

Sawyer on the set of Flashforward with series star Joseph Fiennes. (Photo Credit: Carolyn Clink)

SOUNDWAVES FROM MALTON

Birth of Canada's Reggae Scene

In mid-1970s Malton if your kitchen pots were knockin’, Jerry Brown’s place was likely rockin’.

From the basement of his Landen Court semi-detached home, metres from the airport, Brown created Summer Records, Canada’s first reggae label, in 1974.

The house became a hub for Jamaican musicians and their fans.

On any given Sunday, Brown and friends would be throwing down hooks and powerful bass beats that reverberated through the neighbourhood.

Literally.

As Brown recounted in the July 2024 National Film Board reggae anthology documentary Sound and Pressure: Reggae in a Foreign Land, one of his neighbours finally came over and asked Brown to turn the music down after a pot on the stove crashed to the floor.

LORNE PARK

A Retreat from Industrial Toronto

For close to 150 years Lorne Park Estates has cultivated one of Mississauga most unique and exclusive communities.

On May 24th 1879 – Queen Victoria’s birthday – a consortium of businessmen opened ‘Lorne Park’ their new 75-acre pleasure grounds about a 90-minute cruise west from Toronto Harbour.

Named for the newly installed Governor General, the Marquess of Lorne, Lorne Park boasted merry-go-rounds, swings, a bowling alley, billiard parlour, ice cream parlour, restaurant, bar and a music pavilion.

A round trip and ticket to the park cost 25 cents; 15 cents for children with people travelling on the Armenia, Picton and Empress of India steamers.

It was reported that over 8,000 people attended Lorne Park on that opening day, while an additional 1,000 local people from

Brown’s little corner of Malton became a music city, with reggae artists such as Heptones lead singer Leroy Sibbles, Johnny Osbourne, one of the most popular reggae and dancehall performers, and Jackie Mittoo who recorded his U.K. hit ‘Rockin Universally’ here.

Brown hand delivered newly pressed albums to radio stations and record stores, and while he’d sell some at reggae-friendly stories in Kensington Market and Little Jamaica, the larger culture largely ignored this new-to-Canada music style.

However, even fellow Toronto-area reggae fans doubted the quality of music made in Malton, so he slapped ‘Made in Jamaica’ labels on his albums to encourage sales.

Finally in 1988, Brown closed Summer Records, selling the Malton house and his recording equipment.

Today Brown is celebrated as one of the founding fathers of Canada’s reggae scene.

Port Credit and Clarkson travelled in by buggies and wagons.

In 1886 a new investor group built 27 cottages, many of which featured wrap-around verandahs and second-floor balconies for well-to-do Torontonians.

Then in 1919 some of the cottagers, led by Mary Louise Clarke, successfully lobbied to convert Lorne Park into a cooperative ownership structure called Lorne Park Estates.

Today Lorne Park Estate Association continues to cooperatively govern and manage this unique private community within the City of Mississauga.

While residents own their multi-million dollar house lots, the Lorne Park Estate Association owns the rest of the 80 acres of the Park, including 42 acres of woodlands, located south of Lakeshore Blvd, on the east side of Jack Darling Park.

Lorne Park’s Hotel Louise, circa 1895 (Photo credit: Heritage Mississauga)

Earth, Roots and Water recorded on the Summer Records label. (Photo credit/Heritage Mississauga)

38WHISPERS AMONG THE OAKS

The Life & Works of Mazo de la Roche

The gossip-loving Bridgertons and their friends in the ‘ton’ owe a debt of gratitude to the The Whiteoaks of Jalna and the stately home in Clarkson that inspired them.

Benares.

The home and Mississauga museum on Clarkson Road North was the inspiration for the quietly imaginative Mazo de la Roche, who spun a tale of love, betrayal and money across 16 books that turned her into one of Canada’s first and mostsuccessful international literary stars.

De la Roche was already an established Canadian author when she and her cousin and confidante Caroline Clement purchased land on the edge of Benares in 1924, the large country estate owned for four generations by the Harris family.

Here they built Trail Cottage, a place for de la Roche to retreat from the bustle of the city and write.

Born Maisie Louise Roche, her early childhood was spent travelling courtesy of her father William’s work as a travelling salesman and her mom Lundy’s poor health. All the moving made it difficult to make friends, so young Maisie turned to books and began writing plays and stories with vivid characters and scenes.

She published her first story in 1902 at the age of 23, but it wasn’t until 1920 when she was able to write fulltime – and she and Caroline came to Clarkson.

Global literary star Mazo de la Roche.

(Photo credit: Museums of Mississauga)

Here she got to know the Harris’ of Benares, a well-off family in rural Ontario who hosted weekend garden parties and croquet matches on Benares’ front lawn.

An only child who moved around a lot, de la Roche had never known what it was like to be part of a big, sprawling family like the Harrises – so she imagined one into existence.

The Whitoaks of Jalna.

Siblings Meg and Renny; their younger step-siblings Eden, Piers, Finch and Wakefield; uncles Nicholas and Ernest; and Adeline, the 101-year-old matriarch of Jalna, their country estate.

This was a fictional family with all the drama.

In the first story, entitled Jalna, Piers Whiteoaks is wildly, passionately in love with girl-next-door Pheasant Vaughn, much to the family’s ire.

Twenty years earlier Pheasant’s father Maurice had been engaged to Meg. However during the year-long engagement, Maurice had a secret affair with village girl Elvira Gray, who, on the eve of Maurice and Meg’s wedding, deposited the newborn Pheasant on Maurice’s’ doorstep and disappeared.

Now Pheasant has become a Whiteoaks bride (gasp!).

As juicy a piece of gossip as anything Lady Whistledown reports in Bridgerton.

Back in 1927 readers of The Atlantic Monthly were hooked and de la Roche’s literary star took off like a rocket.

She won the magazine’s $10,000 (USD) literary prize, roughly equivalent to $177,000 (USD) in today’s dollars.

Over the next 30 years de la Roche would publish 16 books in the Jalna series, paving the way for high-drama romantic family page-turners, a storytelling staple of today’s bingeable series Bridgerton, to the Roys of Succession and reality TV’s Kardashians and Vanderpumps.

De la Roche was among the first to earn international fame with these types of stories; a middle-aged woman in a male-dominated literary world who remains one of the bestselling Canadian authors of all time.

Through the 20th century, the Jalna series sold over 93 million copies via 193 English-language and 92 foreignlanguage editions.

The first family of fictional Clarkson inspired three adaptations: the 1935 RKO Radio Pictures adaptation, Jalna, the 1972 CBC miniseries The Whiteoaks of Jalna, and the 1994 French series Jalna, which won best soap or series at the 1995 Sept

d’Or, France’ annual TV award.

Despite her fame, de la Roche, who died in 1961, was famously private and so it is through her fictional family that her legacy continues.

On Clarkson Road North, you can visit Benares, the source of de la Roche’s inspiration and now a City-owned museum.

And once here, continue to explore de la Roche’s real-life inspiration by travelling a little further down Clarkson Road, to Mazo Crescent, which connects to Whiteoaks Public School. Go a little further to Birchwood Drive, near where Trail Cottage once sat and walk in de la Roche’s footsteps along Nine Creeks Trail towards Whiteoaks Park, once part of the Benares’ estate, past Jalna and Whiteoaks Avenues, and then over the Birchwood Creek bridge to arrive at Lorne Park Library, part of the Mississauga Library system.

Here you can meet Adeline, Meg, Renny, Piers and Pheasant in the pages of the Jalna series and visit the world Mazo de la Roche created amongst the white oaks of Clarkson.

Through her creativity and imagination Mazo de la Roche helped to build this city.

Mazo de la Roche and Bunty, her much-loved Scottie. (Photo credit: Museums of Mississauga)

Mazo de la Roche at Trail Cottage in Clarkson where she wrote her celebrated Whiteoaks of Jalna series. (Photo credit: Museums of Mississauga)

MEMORIAL PARK

A Mississauga Legacy 39

Memorial Park in Port Credit is one of Mississauga’s great outdoor spaces.

Located on the east bank of the Credit River, just north of Lakeshore Road, the Park has green spaces, a stage, the city’s Music Walk of Fame – and a deep connection to the Mississaugas of the Credit.

The land along the Credit River was long part of the Mississaugas’ traditional territory, which extended over much of today’s Golden Horseshoe. However, the area at the mouth of the Credit River holds particular significance in the history of the Mississaugas— and in the city that bears their name.

Specifically, Port Credit Harbour owes its existence to the Mississauga’s initial financial investment.

In 1828, the Mississaugas bought a two-thirds majority share in the Port Credit Harbour Company, the first harbour in Toronto Township.

It proved to be an important investment.

By this time, British and American settlers had been building and clearing the land around the Credit River for over two decades, which included the establishment of a number of grist (flour) mills and sawmills in what would become Erindale and Streetsville.

Lumber and flour from the mills, along with fruits and vegetables from farms, were shipped from Port Credit Harbour to American markets – and the Mississaugas were at the centre of Port Credit’s early colonial trading venture.

They built the wharves for the new harbour, one of which extended 300 feet and which was wide enough for horse-drawn wagons to haul grain to waiting boats.

At the height of the harvest season, it was said that two steamships left each day, ladened with goods.

The Mississaugas also built and operated one of the schooners, the Credit Chief, that worked Lake Ontario’s trade routes, following in the wake of centuries of Indigenous trade through the Great Lakes.

A few kilometres north, where the river bends at what is now the Mississaugua Golf and Country Club, the Mississaugas lived in what remained of their original lands.

Although the Credit Mission, as it was known, occupied just a few hundred acres on land ceded to the Crown, there is evidence that the Mississaugas developed a far larger area.

There are historic accounts that the Mississaugas lived and farmed on over 3,500 acres, roughly a mile on either side of the Credit

River from the mouth of the river, basically where the QEW bridge is today, to today’s Queensway.

Here the Mississaugas built about 40 homes, a hospital, a school, a blacksmith shop, eight barns and two sawmills. They reserved about 900 acres for farming and pastures where they grew, potatoes, corn, peas, oats and wheat. They maintained several orchards and raised cows, pigs and chicken.

All this economic activity was driven in part by Rev. Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby), the biracial son of Tuhbenahneequay, daughter of a former Mississauga chief, and British surveyor Augustus Jones.

Peter and his brother John (Thayendanegea) were raised by their mother until their early teens, when they went to live with their father to complete their schooling, and where Peter was ordained a Methodist minister.

Rev. Jones believed that economic freedom was the path to survival for the Mississaugas and he advocated for that at all levels of government – including a private audience with a young Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle.

He was assisted in his efforts by his brother John, and John’s wife Christiana, granddaughter of Mohawk military leader Joseph Brant –the most famous and powerful Indigenous leader of his era.

The Jones brothers influenced the development of both the Credit Mission and the settler community at the mouth of the river.

In 1828 they, along with Mississauga Chief Joseph Sawyer, were three of the original 10 charter members of the Port Credit Harbour Company, and it is possible they influenced the design of the original lots that created the Village of Port Credit in 1834.

Both brothers each received 1.5 acre lots along Port Street and Peter and John Streets are named in their honour.

However, despite the Mississaugas’ economic success and the Jones’ political advocacy, the community did not feel safe on their land, most notably because they were unable to secure title to their land from the colonial government of Upper Canada, then led by Sir Francis Bond Head.

In 1846, the colonial government unilaterally ordered the Credit Mission lands be surveyed and prepared for settlement.

The Mississaugas needed to find a new home, and in 1847 the Mississaugas acquired 6,000 acres in their traditional territory from the Six Nations, home to the Haudenosaunee.

In May 1847, about 250 people left the Credit River for the Grand River and established a new Reserve near Hagersville, Ontario.

In 1903 the Mississaugas of the Credit purchased the land from the Six Nations and today, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation is a community composed of approximately 2,700 members. One-third of the community lives on reserve lands while the others mostly live in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area.

Rise of Meadowvale & Erin Mills

Some of Canada’s largest fortunes were wagered in the race to settle the west.

The men in suits began knocking on famers’ doors in the 1950s, with offers few could refuse: enough money to retire in exchange for deed to farms west of Toronto.

They had a single aim: to purchase thousands of acres of farmland, hold it and then, when the price was right, develop it for the expected population surge.

E.P. Taylor, founder and head of the Argus Corporation, the holding company for Dominion Stores, Domtar, Standard Broadcasting, Massey Ferguson, and Canadian Breweries Ltd., was the chief backer of Erin Mills and its new town concept.

Just to the north Markborough Ltd., was building its own new town – Meadowvale. Markborough was a publicly traded investment

40 RATTRAY MARSH

41

A Wetland's Journey to Preservation

company that counted as its major shareholders a who’s who of Bay Street corporations: Holborough Investments Ltd., which was owned by Aluminum Co. Of Canada (ALCOA), the Bank of Nova Scotia and Greenshields Inc.; Air Canada Pension Trust Fund; Canadian National Railways Pension Trust Fund; Canada Life Assurance Co.; Canada Permanent Mortgage Corp.; Equitable Life Insurance Co.; L-Industrielle Compagnie d’Assurance sur la Vie; the Investors Group; the Mutual Life Assurance Co. Of Canada; North American Life Assurance Co.; contractor George Wimpey Canada Ltd.; British American Oil Co. Ltd., owner of the Clarkson refinery; and realtor A.E. LePage.

Erin Mills and Meadowvale were designed to deliver the Canadian middle-class dream – backed by some Canada’s wealthiest names.

Rattray Marsh is the last remaining wetland area on the western side of Lake Ontario, a testament to Ruth Hussey, the British-born veterinarian with a desire to protect the natural world.

The marsh sits on 94-acres along Lake Ontario in Clarkson and includes a beach, wetlands, woodlands and one of Lake Ontario’s last ‘shingle bar’ marshes.

In 1956 the Hussey family bought a house near the Rattray Estate, where Major James Rattray generously allowed neighborhood children to use its sandy beach, play hockey on a protected pond, fish in the marsh, and ride his horses and pony.

When Major Rattray passed away in 1959, his will did not explicitly bequeath the land to anyone or any entity – and this is when Hussey

stepped up. Alongside other community members, Hussey advocated for the purchase of Major Rattray's property for a public park.

Over the next 16 years conservationists and developers would battle over the fate of Rattray Marsh. Finally, in 1974 a deal was struck and Rattray Marsh officially opened to the public the next year.

Today Rattray Marsh is managed by Credit Valley Conservation and can be accessed via Jack Darling Park at Turtle Creek. It is the single busiest access point in Credit Valley Conservation’s entire system, welcoming over 300,000 visitors each year.

At the western end of Rattray, near the entrance on Old Poplar Row in the neighbourhood where Hussey lived, you’ll find a large stone that simply says “Ruth Hussey: Because of her, Rattray Marsh is ours.”

The courtyard near the boardwalk at the southern end of Lake Aquitaine. (Photo credit/Mississauga Library)

Dr. Ruth Hussey. (Photo credits/Mississauga’s Legends Row)

TOMMY HUNTER

Canada's Country Gentleman & The Show that Brought Music To The Nation

From his home base in Clarkson, Tommy Hunter helped rocket Canadian country music to the stars – and serenaded the new City of Mississauga into existence.

Between 1965 and 1992, Canada’s Country Gentleman travelled the QEW to CBC’s national TV studios in Toronto to host The Tommy Hunter Show.

With a weekly audience at its peak of 3 million people, chances are if you grew up in the 60s, 70s or 80s and your family owned a TV set, it was tuned to The Tommy Hunter Show.

Which is why Hunter was asked to write a special song to commemorate the creation of the City of Mississauga in 1974. For the recording session, Hunter brought a gaggle of Mississauga personalities to sing backup on The Mississauga Song, including the outgoing mayor of Streetsville – Hazel McCallion.

For 27 years The Tommy Hunter Show was a national spotlight for many Canadian artists, including country music icons such as Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray, Hank Snow, Wilf Carter, and k.d. lang.

It gave Canadians their first glimpse of Alanis Morrisette and Shania Twain, the latter performing under her real name, Ellie (short for Eilleen) Twain, as a 14-year-old.

It also brought the biggest names in American country music north. Stars such as Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, Allison Kraus, The Judds, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Marie Osmond.

The show was so popular it was also broadcast in the U.S. on The Nashville Network, which raised Tommy’s profile and also shone a bigger spotlight on Canadian talent.

Hunter’s approach was different from other shows, such as Hee Haw, which wore its hick country badge with pride.

Inspired by the U.S. variety shows hosted by classic crooners such as Andy Williams and Perry Como, Tommy Hunter sought to create a country music show with class.

Standing there in his neat, fitted suit, hair coiffed, and looking directly into the camera, Hunter was like the friendly neighbour in the sequined suit.

At its core, The Tommy Hunter Show was about wholesome family entertainment.

It was a program that families could watch together, and it carried messages and values that resonated with a broad audience, emphasizing family, community, and kindness – and Hunter took his show on tour.

He was among the first artists to tour the Arctic; he visited and performed on every major military base in Canada and performed for United Nations forces around the world.

In 1956, he became a regular on CBC’s Country Hoedown – a crash course in learning how to write and produce music on a weekly schedule, including adding some rock and roll to his country compositions.

He got his own show in 1965, a 30-minute black and white program that would evolve into The Tommy Hunter Show, one of CBC Television’s longest-running shows.

In 1990, country music paid Tommy Hunter one of its most significant honours, inducting him into the Country Music Hall of Fame’s Walkway of Stars in Nashville.

He was an inaugural honouree on Mississauga’s Legend’s Row.

Tommy Hunter, 2013 (photo credit: Michael Hurcomb/Corbis Entertainment)

Tommy Hunter and all-star choir for recording of Mississauga song, 1974 (Region of Peel Archives, City of Mississauga)

THE BEATLES Quiet End

The end of The Beatles’ long and winding road came into view in the secluded woods of Mississauga.

It was the week before Christmas 1969 and the world’s most famous couple, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, were staying at Ronnie and Wanda Hawkins’ Braeburn estate, north-west of Burnhamthorpe and Mississauga Roads.

John and Yoko’s heat score was red hot following their March 1969 marriage and headline-grabbing ‘bed-in’ anti-war protest at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel in May.

The pair stayed at Braeburn from December 16-22, 1969, bringing with them a small entourage and 16 newly installed phone lines, on which Ono called influential friends, such as Princess Margaret, and plan their ‘War is Over’ billboard and radio campaign.

Lennon used the time to decompress after a tumultuous summer recording Abbey Road, and a tense September meeting with bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr where Lennon announced he was leaving The Beatles.

THE HARRIS FAMILY

44

A Georgian Mansion’s Story

For the upwardly mobile Harris family in Clarkson, life meant hawking apples by day while dining with royalty at night.

From their 300+ acre estate Benares on Clarkson Road North, now a City museum, the real-life saga of four generations of Harris women and men has it all: a dashing military officer and his Irish bride, society private schools and picnics, gentlemen farmers and genteel poverty, single women of independent means and young men who die tragically.

No wonder the Harrises and their two-storey Georgian mansion were the inspiration for neighbour Mazo de la Roche and her blockbuster Jalna series.

The story begins with Captain James Harris and his wife, Elizabeth Malony, who purchase Benares in 1836.

By the 1860s, Benares is a large, thriving 342-acre rural estate, with crops of wheat, rye and oat an apple orchard.

However, Lennon wasn’t clear whether it was a temporary break or a permanent ending.

While at Braeburn, Lennon found time to relax. He zoomed around Braeburn on Hawkins’ snowmobile, signed copies of his erotic lithographs, and smoked up while chatting with friends and friendly journalists, including Ray Connolly, the music columnist for the London Evening Standard.

During that conversation Lennon casually confirmed what his bandmates and music fans feared: Lennon was done with The Beatles.

Four months later, on April 10, 1970, McCartney publicly announced he’d left the band.

The Beatles were never in the same room together again.

James and Elizabeth die six weeks apart in 1884, leaving their surviving children, Arthur, Bessie, Lucy and Anne financially well-off.

Arthur and his wife Mary invest in Benares, raise Muscovy ducks, peacocks and peahens, and send daughters, Annie and Naomi, to private school in Toronto.

When Arthur dies in 1932, he leaves Benares to Naomi, who, despite several besotted suitors, never marries and stays at Benares.

Annie marries Beverly Sayers and lives nearby raising children, Geoffrey, Barbara and Dora, who inherit Benares after Naomi dies in 1968.

Benares became a City museum in 1995 and today welcomes visitors to explore the world of the Harrises and life in rural Ontario circa 1918.

Benares, the Harris’ Estate on Clarkson Road. N. (Photo credit/Museums of Mississauga)

Ronnie and Wanda Hawkins (left) and John Lennon and Yoko Ono at Braeburn. (Photo credit/Heritage Mississauga)

OSCAR PETERSON

Hymn to Freedom

Sixty years ago Oscar Peterson was on a train when an arrangement began to play in his mind.

The Montreal-born Peterson was an established international jazz star, a virtuoso on the piano.

He toured everywhere, from the Maritimes to British Columbia, often travelling by train. As he watched the country go by, an idea began to form.

The Canadiana Suite.

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Eight movements, cinematic in their scope, as we the listeners, travel with him on a cross-country musical journey. Beginning with the Ballad to the East, Laurentide Waltz, Place St. Henri, Hogtown Blues, Blues of the Prairies, Wheatland, March Past and concluding in the Land of the Misty Giants.

The Canadiana Suite is considered one of Peterson’s greatest compositions, visualizing through his trademark fast arpeggios and runs, Canada’s many landscapes, and bringing together Peterson’s great love for both jazz and Canada.

Perhaps there was a bit of his father Daniel in those movements, who worked as a railway porter, saving money to purchase a family piano.

Born and raised in the Little Burgundy neighbourhood of Montreal, Peterson came of age as jazz was beginning to take root in Canada and Little Burgundy at the heart of it.

Oscar Peterson helped to popularize jazz around the world.

(Photo credit/Mississauga’s Legend’s Row)

However, Montreal in the 1930s was racially divided. Black workers and immigrants lived on the south side; the popular jazz clubs were on the north side and off-limits.

So the musicians of Little Burgundy created their own scene, such as Rockhead’s Paradise, where Peterson and fellow jazz pianist Oliver Jones got the crowd jumping.

Under the tutelage of his older sister Daisy, Oscar’s prodigious talent at the piano became apparent early on, taking him to Carnegie Hall while still in his 20s.

Peterson was renowned for his extraordinary technique, characterized by blazing speed, precision, and a profound musicality. His ability to blend complex chords with intricate melodies in a seamless, fluid style set new standards for jazz piano.

His style was a rich amalgamation of influences, including classical music, swing, and bebop, which he melded into a distinctive voice that was both sophisticated and accessible. This innovation helped shape the sound of jazz piano.

Peterson's international tours and performances at major venues around the world played a significant role in popularizing jazz globally, bringing the genre to new audiences and elevating its status as a significant art form.

Despite his international fame, Peterson, like his peers, faced deep racism. In the 1950s, Black people were still a very tiny minority and Peterson, despite his prodigious talent, felt shut-out of Montreal and Toronto’s music and cultural establishment, including the CBC.

Peterson used his public fame and the strength of character instilled in him by his family, to battle for equal rights in Canada and his 1962 composition, Hymn to Freedom became a civil rights anthem.

In 1972 Oscar Peterson was inducted as a member of the Order of Canada.

It was around that time, in the early 1970s that Peterson moved to Mississauga, after a landlord in Toronto’s posh Forest Hills neighbourhood refused to rent to him because he was black.

In Erindale, he found a more open, welcoming and new community, where he got to know his neighbours and was able to retrofit his two-storey home with a soundproof studio for his Bosendorfer grand piano and a multi-track recording suite.

Over the course of his career, Peterson won over 100 awards, including eight Grammys and the UNESCO International Music Prize.

He played all over the world and collaborated with Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich and his own trio. But while his fame was international, Peterson’s heart was rooted in Canada, and in Mississauga.

Among his many accomplishments, Peterson was a patron of Heritage Mississauga.

His work has inspired countless musicians across genres. His recordings are studied by jazz students for their technical brilliance and emotional depth, and his legacy is cited by many contemporary artists as a major influence on their own development.

With a career spanning over 60 years, Peterson's discography is vast and varied, covering solo albums, trios, and collaborations with some of the biggest names in jazz, including Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Herbie Hancock, who said this soon after Peterson died.

“Oscar Peterson redefined swing for modern jazz pianists. You’ll find Oscar Peterson’s influence in the generations that came after him. No one will ever be able to take his place.”

In 2013 he was one of the inaugural inductees of Mississauga’s Legends Row, the city’s highest honour.

A number of activities are planned to celebrate the centenary of Peterson’s birth in 2025, including a special concert at Massey Hall.

Mayor Hazel McCallion and Council honoured Oscar Peterson in 2003 with Mississauga’s Civic Award of Merit. (Photo credit/Museums of Mississauga)

REFINERY ROOTS

Life on Marigold Crescent 46

British American Oil Company was neither British nor American; it was 100 per cent Canadian, founded in Toronto in 1907 by Canadian businessmen Albert Ellsworth and Silas Parsons.

In the mid-1930s the company started to explore constructing a refinery in the farming community of Clarkson, on the shores of Lake Ontario but then history intervened.

It was 1941 and the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan was prepping pilots for the war effort at bases across the country, including at the newly-opened Malton Airport, 30 kilometres northeast of Clarkson.

It needed the Clarkson refinery built ASAP, but not to produce gasoline. It needed airplane fuel.

The new BA Oil refinery opened to much fanfare on November 15, 1943. It was one of the world’s most modern refineries.

To attract the skilled workers to Clarkson, 35 kilometres west of Toronto, BA built employee housing.

Marigold Village with its 50 homes was located about 50 yards south of where Clarkson Road South meets Orr Road.

BA Oil maintained Marigold Village from 1943 to 1964 for its employees and their families. My parents moved onto the Crescent in 1956 and stayed for the remaining eight years.

On maps it’s called Marigold Village but to my parents and everyone who lived there it was always just The Crescent.

My parents’ bungalow had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a living room, and the Silverwood’s Dairy milkman dropped bottles of milk in the milk chute by the basement door.

Rent was $48 a month, almost half what my parents had been paying for their first apartment in Port Credit, and because the homes were owned by the refinery, my parents’ rent never increased. In addition, electricity, property taxes and all maintenance costs were covered by BA.

For my parents and the other young families, Marigold Crescent was a special place. Because all the men knew each other from work, and Marigold Crescent wasn’t part of a larger subdivision, the families formed a strong bond.

They had corn roasts and picnics. The stay-at-home moms would get together at each other’s homes for morning coffee visits, and walk to the end of the crescent each afternoon to meet the school bus as it dropped off their children.

The company built a ballfield for baseball in the summer, and an ice rink in the winter. The kids would play on it until it was time for bed and then, at 10 pm the men, my dad included, would go out on it for games of shinny.

When BA Oil decided to shut down Marigold Crescent, they gave families a year’s notice. A few families opted to relocate their physical house and today three of the original Marigold homes sit on Orr Road, while a fourth is located across the street from Canadian Tire on the east side of Southdown Road.

Reminders of how the story of suburbia began to take shape in the fields west of Toronto.

Children at play on Marigold Crescent. (Photo credit/Fran and Matt Hrabluk)

The Rise of a City

Mississauga is where Toronto begins – at least it is from a municipal place name perspective.

The City of Mississauga was originally named Toronto Township by British colonial officials in 1805 on land purchased from the Mississaugas of the Credit.

Derived from the Mohawk word ‘tkaronto,’ its original meaning identified ‘where there are trees standing in the water’ at the narrows connecting Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching in present-day Orillia.

That gives the City of Mississauga the unique distinction of having maintained a connection to Indigenous languages from colonial contact to present day.

As settlers arrived, the villages of Clarkson, Erindale, Cooksville, Dixie, Lorne Park, Lakeview, Malton, Meadowvale, Port Credit and Streetsville were created.

Toronto Township became self-governing in 1873; Port Credit and Streetsville became self-governing towns in 1909 and 1962, respectively.

By 1951, the Township had almost 29,000 residents, and in 1956 Reeve Mary Fix suggested amalgamating with Malton, Port Credit and Streetsville to form a new town.

SOUTH ASIAN INFLUENCE

48

Diversity, Dance, & Innovation

A 7,000-year-old culture is reflected in the modern face of Mississauga.

About 25 per cent of Mississauga residents claim South Asian ancestry according to the 2021 Canadian census, a term that refers to people from the eight countries framed by the Himalayas, Karakorum and Pamir mountains: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal.

While South Asian immigration to Canada dates back over a century, the majority of Mississauga residents arrived from the 1960s onward, seeking higher education and professional careers in medicine, finance, academia and entrepreneurship.

They brought with them the diversity of South Asian culture, which includes over 43 languages, and a desire to fuse it with the culture of their new home.

Today Mississauga is one of the largest South Asian cultural hubs in the world, with artists from here earning accolades back there.

Almost immediately Mississauga town council advocated to merge with the indebted Town of Port Credit and annex the independently-minded Town of Streetsville, led by its independently-minded mayor, Hazel McCallion.

In 1973 the Government of Ontario’s Act to Establish the Regional Municipality of Peel became law on June 22, 1973, and the Regional Municipality of Peel, the Town of Caledon and the Cities of Brampton and Mississauga were officially incorporated on January 1, 1974.

Lata Pada was among the first to establish an international reputation with the creation in 1990 of Sampradaya Dance Creations, the largest Bharatanatyam dance studio outside India. Bharatanatyam is the mother of Hindi dance styles, with origins that trace back thousands of years.

She was followed by people such as Jasmine Sawant who co-founded SAWITRI Theatre Group (2003), which presents contemporary works by established and emerging artists, composer and musician Vikas Kohli created the Bollywood Monster Mashup (2011) to celebrate all things Bollywood, and visual artist Asma Mahmood and her husband Arshad created the Mosaic Festival (2006), featuring contemporary South Asian visual artists and performers, and Rock the Coliseum an independent music festival.

Thirteen years later, on January 1, 1968 the Town of Mississauga was incorporated – minus Port Credit and Streetsville.

Mississauga’s new Town Council at the old council chambers on Hurontario Street. (Image courtesy Museums of Mississauga)

Mississauga Transit gets set to hit the road, 1974. (Image courtesy Museums of Mississauga)

The award-winning Mosaic Festival. (Photo courtesy of Mosaic Festival)

ANTHEM FOR THE AGES

Triumph, Metalworks, & Music History

In 1975 as the City of Mississauga was finding its rhythm, a trio of long-haired rockers came blasting out of the ‘burbs: Triumph.

Guitarist Rik Emmett with his distinctive voice, Mike Levine on bass and keyboards and drummer Gil Moore sharing lead vocals.

The band brought together elements of hard rock, progressive rock, and heavy metal to create a sound that dominated Canadian rock stations through the 70s and 80s.

Triumph had it all.

Fiery live performances, anthemic rock ballads, like Magic Power, Lay it on The Line and Follow Your Heart, a dedicated fan base, and fiery live performances.

Between 1975 and 1988, the trio released nine studio albums and toured the world on the strength of their unique blend of harddriving hits.

But that wasn’t the only way they set themselves apart from their peers.

In 1978 the guys built their own recording studio back home in Mississauga and what started out as a private project for the band, quickly grew into a recording hub for other artists.

By the mid-1980s, Metalworks was rockin’ just as the band was starting to come apart.

Rik left the band in 1988 while Gil and Mike tried to keep going for one final album and tour before Triumph hung it up for good in 1993.

That’s when Gil turned his attention full-time to Metalworks.

With Triumph Gil Moore toured the world; with Metalworks, Gil brought the world to the central Mississauga studio.

Metalworks Studio's growth is a testament to Moore's vision.

Under his leadership, it evolved into Canada's preeminent studio, distinguished by an astonishing 17-time recognition as Canada's Studio of the Year.

The studio's walls are lined with awards and platinum records, a testament to the magic that has been produced within them.

Today Metalworks is Canada’s largest music studio and the go-to recording space for some of the biggest names in music.

Drake, Lil Wayne, Katy Perry, the Jonas Brothers, Sade, Prince, Tina Turner, David Bowie, The Cranberries, Ashlee Simpson, D12, Guns N Roses, Silverchair, Bruce Springsteen, NSYNC and Christina Aguilera have all recorded here.

So has just about every major act to come out of Canada in the last 30 years.

Sum 41, Feist, K-OS, Sam Roberts, Billy Talent, Barenaked Ladies, Metric, Johnny Reid, Simple Plan, Tom Cochrane, Our Lady Peace, Tea Party, Bachman-Cummings, Nelly Furtado, Anne Murray and Triumph’s cross-town prog rock friends Rush have all made music at Metalworks.

With an eye toward the future and a commitment to nurturing the next generation of music industry professionals, Moore established Metalworks Institute in 2005.

The training centre was a natural extension of the studio, designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to excel in an ever-evolving industry.

Metalworks' influence extends beyond its recording success; it plays a pivotal role in the cultural and economic development of Mississauga's music sector and is a cornerstone of the Canadian music scene.

Thanks to Metalworks Studios and Metalworks Institute, Gil Moore hasn’t just witnessed music history; he’s built it.

Triumph came blasting out of the ‘burbs and wrote some of Canada’s most anthemic rock songs. (Photo courtesy of Mississauga’s Legends Row)

Triumph co-founders Guitarist Rik Emmett, bassist and keyboardist Mike Levine and drummer Gil Moore were inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2019. (Photo courtesy of Gil Moore)

THE SPIRIT OF GLENERIN From Summer Home to Spa Retreat

Erindale's Glenerin Inn and Spa is known for its ability to help guests relax and while the Inn has been here since 1986, the building has been offering peace-filled respite to people for almost a century.

Toronto lawyer William Watson Evans and his wife Mary built the Tudor-style mansion and carriage house in 1927 as a summer home for their family.

They called it Glenerin Hall.

Unfortunately, William died of a heart attack four years later. Mary, and her children continued to use the house, hosting parties and gatherings through the 1930s.

Then, against the backdrop of the Second World War, Mary received a devastating diagnosis: cancer.

Glenerin Hall was turned over to St. Hilda's College, an English girls boarding school, to provide safe refuge in Canada for the students, just shortly before Mary died in October 1940. Her youngest child John was just nine years old.

After the war, Simpsons, the Canadian department store chain, purchased Glenerin Hall and converted it into a convalescence home for employees, the first of its kind in Canada.

The concept of worker welfare was gradually gaining traction in Canada during this period.

Men and women were returning from the Second World War, some with physical injuries and others with mental health conditions caused by the horrors they had witnessed.

As Frances Turner of the Simpsons publicity department explained:

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“Glenerin isn't a present. It is part of our postwar plans. We consider looking after our employees good business. If their health is good their service to us is good and we owe it to ourselves and to them to see that every means is employed to keep everybody healthy and happy.”

In addition to the 85 acres available to explore, Glenerin Hall also had a swimming pool, hard-surface tennis court and areas for lawn bowling, badminton and croquet.

Glenerin Hall was available to all Simpson's employees at all locations upon recommendation from a company physician. While there, employees continued to be paid a full salary.

Nurse Dorothy Swift managed the program, which included a staff of resident nurses, cooks and support staff.

In 1961 Simpson's sold Glenerin Hall but continued to use the name in its line of products.

From the late 1940s until well into the 1970s, Canadians could wrap themselves in Glenerin's luxury via Glenerin branded pocket-spring mattresses, hemstitched sheets, pillows, bedspreads, towels, bath mats and electric blankets.

And remember John Evans, youngest son of Glenerin's original owners?

He grew up to be a world-leader global health and education. First at McMaster University, where his medical education model has been replicated around the world and then at the World Bank as the founding director of the Population Health and Nutrition department.

Between 1972 and 1978 Dr. Evans served as President of the University of Toronto, which included overseeing the new Erindale campus, which had opened in 1967 on the banks of the Credit River, across the ravine from his family’s former estate at Glenerin Hall.

ENJOY THIS STORY? THERE'S MORE TO DISCOVER!

Read the full story at visitmississauga.ca/we-built-this-city

Listen to our latest podcast episode at webuiltthiscity.ca

COMMUNITIES BUILD HOSPITALS &

By Karli Farrow, President and CEO, Trillium Health Partners

Hospitals Build Communities

The relationship between a hospital and its community is crucial. Hospitals are built to support the needs of the community it serves, and a hospital cannot thrive and evolve without the support and partnership of its community.

The first hospitals in Mississauga and West Toronto were created when the community rallied to make sure people living here received the care they needed and deserved. The Queensway Health Centre, Mississauga Hospital, and Credit Valley Hospital helped to build a thriving city.

Our community's growth and spirit helped shape Trillium Health Partners (THP) into one of Canada's largest and most specialized health care organizations. A single system focused on the needs of the diverse community we serve, which continues to grow and change at a rapid pace with more complex needs. Over the next 20 years, no hospital in Ontario will experience more demand for its services than THP.

Our community is changing and growing, and so are we.

BUILDING A NEW KIND OF HEALTH CARE

Ten years ago, we listened when the community asked for quality health care closer to home. We brought together three hospitals and created Trillium Health Partners. This integration meant we could deliver care better with new ideas from education, research, and innovation. This care is delivered with compassion, excellence, and courage.

Today, we are excited for the next step. Trillium HealthWorks is our vision for the future and the largest health infrastructure renewal project in Canada’s history. This project includes building the country’s largest hospital, The Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital, which will also be home to the Shah Family Hospital for Women and Children, a first of its kind in Ontario. The expansion of the Queensway Health Centre will transform it into The Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre, specializing in rehabilitative and complex care.

This means more beds, shorter wait times, and world-class care delivered right here at home. It means more doctors, nurses, and

support staff who will work closely together to connect your care through every step of your journey, no matter which Trillium Health Partners' door you walk through.

But it’s much more than that. This vision addresses health care challenges. It aims to end a system that leaves too many people waiting, alone, and lost. It’s about reinventing health care to see the whole person and creating a system that works for everyone. This is health care that leaves no one behind.

TOP RANKING CARE CLOSER TO HOME

THP has achieved top rankings for the quality of care at every stage of life. Our leading-edge specialized programs include maternal and paediatric care, cancer, cardiac, chronic kidney care, genetics, neurosurgery, stroke, and vascular care. These services are delivered by some of the best clinical teams in Canada who are leaders in patient-centred, integrated care.

As one of the largest academic teaching hospitals, and in partnership with the Institute for Better Health, one of the top 40 hospital research centres in the country, we are thinking differently about how to shape the system and set new standards in research, innovation and patient outcomes.

With a team of over 15,000, world-renowned talent is drawn to our collaborative, team-based approach. We're grateful to the dedicated nurses, physicians, health care professionals, learners, volunteers, donors, and partners whose skill and support lets us innovate and improve care.

LEADERS IN CONNECTED CARE

At THP, we think beyond the traditional idea of a hospital. Health care should be organized around your needs and easier to navigate. With our partners, we are focusing on preventing illness

and avoiding hospitalization. This is health care that goes beyond hospital walls and into the community, with a focus on underserved areas. Our goal is easier access to the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

We partner with the best in the world and invest in the latest technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and virtual care tools. We have introduced MyChart, an online tool that lets patients view appointments, test results and more. This new electronic system means your medical records can be easily and securely shared with any professional involved in your care, whether it is within the hospital or community. This is connected care.

Creating an environment that supports the best experience for every person is what drives us. We serve one of the most diverse communities in the world, which sets us apart when it comes to our research and building a system that knows how to care for a person’s unique needs. Just recently, we have launched a video interpretation service that allows patients to speak with us in over 240 languages and dialects, including American Sign Language.

We continue to listen to what people need to feel seen, heard, and welcome. This includes a new patient experience survey for feedback. Your engagement and input are crucial in shaping how we evolve. The experience you have with us is just as important as the medical care you receive.

Together, we are building the future of health care right here in our community.

Shah Family Hospital for Women and Children inpatient room(rendering subject to change)

Groundbreaking on the future home of The Gilgan Family Queensway Health Centre TRILLIUM