The Chicago Of The North

“Economic boom” is scarcely adequate to describe the effect of the coming of the railway. “Excepting William Watts, fisherman, and a few men employed by him, there were at Christmas 1853 only four families at Collingwood. (William Watts soon became Collingwood’s pioneer boat-builder, founding what became the Town’s major industry.) By 1858 the site had been transformed from a roadless “impenetrable mass of cedar swamp” into an incorporated Town, not having paused at village status. Lan prices had risen a thousandfold.

Collingwood’s street plan was laid out almost immediately, in ambitious entirety. The 1856 map promoted a never-build subdivision to the northwest and showed most of the streets that exist today. Many of the blocks in the early maps show few buildings or none, but within twenty years the lands west of the railroad were well filled in, and the main street was recognizably a townscape all the way to Fourth Street. Solid commercial buildings also lined the first block in each direction on the south side of Huron/First Street, and industrial uses extended for some way along the waterfront in both directions.

As a port, Collingwood was an immediate and enormous success. Shippers were providing passage of goods and passengers to Owen Sound, Milwaukee, Sault Ste. Marie, and Lake Superior. In 1858, more than 4,000 passengers were carried on the railway’s steamships alone. By 1860 the cencus showed 24 log shanties and houses, 175 fram houses, and one brick dwelling under construction. The railroad had an equal economic effect along its 94-mile length. Transport to market was suddenly available for farm goods and the abundant timber resource. Land was taken up and cleared, and villages sprang up. Much of the business from the new settlement would flow through Collingwood, and people joked that the initials of the Ontario Simcoe and Huron rail line stood for “oats, Straw & Hay”.

The opportunities offered by the port and rail terminal were eagerly pursued by a growing population, and fishing, timber and lumber, grain-handling, and boat-building, became important in the local economy over the next twenty years, and the port traffic continued to grow. By the 1880s, Collingwood had taken to calling itself “the Chicago of the North”. This progress was scarcely interrupted in September 1881, when the timber-built business district, like many of ots counterparts in Ontario, suffered a devastating fire. John Hogg wrote six years later, “The loss involved was tremendous and might well have paralyzed a less determined people. Yet in a short time the destroyed portion of the town was replaced by a class of business places, which for appearance and finish will compare favourably with any in the province. (John Hogg, Op. Cit., Quoted in Lane-Moore) These business places are the brick commercial buildings that still line Hurontario Street with such grace.

It was likely the built-in business of a busy railhead, as much as the determination of the citizenry, that made the fire so inconsequential in the growth of the town, and the 1880’s saw a great burst of prosperity. So much American shipping passed through the port that thte United States government opened a consulate in the Town. Their commercial agent, Gustavus Goward, wrote in 1880 that Collingwood was “In many respects…the most important point in Ontario as regards American shipping,” and he listed the international trade as involving 293 vessels with crews of 3,951 sailors, and carrying almost 3 million bushels of American grain, besides 65,275 tons of general merchandise. As the Canadian prairies were opened up to settlement, grain from our own West flowed through Collingwood as well. (Gustavus Goward is quoted in Leithead, Op. Cit.)

The boat-building industry grew apace, with the Doherty and Morrill families joining W. Watts & Sons in producing wooden craft. Collingwood supplied skiffs, fishing boats, yachts, and wooden steamships to ports all around the Great Lakes. In 1882, recognizing the need for a dry dock, J.D. Silcox and S.D. Andrews formed the Collingwood Dry Dock, Shipbuilding and Foundry Company, opening the dry dock on Queen Victoria’s birthday the following year. Names “Queen’s Dry Dock” for its inaugural date, the facility changed hands in 1889. In 1899, realizing that the future of Great Lakes shipping was in steel construction, the Collingwood Shipbuilding Company was formed to take over the works and to expand the dry dock to 550 feet.

In 1901 the first steel hull was launched, the 321-foot Huronic, a steamer for passengers and friehgt. The Collingwood Shipyards built 231 vessels in the course of its 103-year existence, and became the Town’s major economic enterprise, employing up to 20% of the population. The great hulls under construction at the foot of Hurontario Street gave rise to the Collingwood tag of “the town with a ship at the end of the street.” (Watts, Op. Citl, & Leithead, Op. Cit, have succinct histories of Collingwood’s boat and ship-building industries.)

As the Town prospered, the residential blocks were filled in. As in so many places, the wealthier citizens tended to live “up the hill”, and from about Third/Ontario Street, they built many impressive homes in the 1870-1910 period. More modest houses, having equivalent heritage value, are interspersed with the mansions and extend northward onto lower lands. Collingwood has a remarkably rich residential heritage, and the existing list of designated homes could easily be tripled without any lowering of standards. The great prosperity continued into the first decade of the Twentieth Century, but as early as 1907 the port began to face competition from the Transcontinental Railroad, and the Shipyard suffered too. The period of expansion was coming to an end, and the 1915 Post Office Building at 44 Hurontario Street and the 1918 Bank of Montreal at 79 Hurontario Street represent the final flourish of the great building period in the town centre.

The Challenges of a New Century

Collingwood continued to thrive, but growth slowed. The population actually declinced from 7,090 in 1911 to 5,882 in 1921 and scarcely grew for another 20 years. The shipyard worked through two world wars, building vessels and munitions, and it managed to survive the intervening Great Depression by manufacturing non-marine products, including agricultural implements and cement-mixers.

The last fifty years have seen significant changes in Collingwood’s economic life, and these have been reflected in redevelopment within the old street plan, and accretions to it on the periphery. Of major importance was the arrival of a new industry in the area: tourism based on the ski-hills that opened along the Escarpment. The Collingwood Ski Club was formed in 1936 by Collingwood businessmen John Smart and Norman Boadway, and in 1941 the ski club land was leased to Blue Mountain Resorts Ltd, which engaged Josef “Jozo” Weider to operate the facility. The resort led a precarious existence for twenty years, but the 1960s saw the beginning of a world-wide skiing boom that continues to this day. An idea of the economic impact of the ski industry can be gathered by the population figures for the Collingwood economic catchment area: permanent residents, 75,000; winter weekend population, 150,000.

The the 1960s, the Town was actively seeking to increase its industrial base, and the provision of fully serviced sites began to bring new employers. By 1971, eleven new manufacturing firms had located in Collingwood, and eight more arrived in the next twelve years. The airport was built in 1965, providing air connections, through Toronto, to the world. These efforts made it possible for Collingwood to weather the closing of the shipyard on September 12, 1986. Local taxpayers have a long tradition of public investment in the future, beginning with the first railway, continuing through the original dry-dock company, the shipyard and, more recently, the industrial infrastructure, the airport, and the Barrie-Collingwood railroad. As a result of these efforts, growth of the Town resumed, and it now boasts a population of about 21,500, and the current tax base has a healthy mix of 15% industrial, 27% commercial, and 58% residential. Other recent municipal efforts include acquisition of the CN spit lands, installation of water and fibre optic lines to New Tecumseth, and extensive upgrades to the water filtration plant and the sewage treatment plant. In 1994, Collingwood was delisted as an Area of Concern by the Great Lakes 2000 Cleanup Fund. (Information on modern population, tax base, impact of tourism, and municipal infrastructure developments from Collingwood Chamber of Commerce and Town of Collingwood Department of Economic Development.)


History of Doors Open Ontario
Downtown Collingwood Heritage District