History Geography Oshawa

Oshawa began as a transfer point for the fur trade. Beaver and other animal pelts were trapped by local natives and traded with the voyagers. The Mississauga Indians at the Oshawa harbour loaded furs onto canoes transporting them to the trading posts located to the west at the mouth of the Credit River. The French constructed a trading post around the 1760's near the harbour location, this was abandoned after a few years, but its ruins provided shelter for the first residents of what later became Oshawa. Most notably, one of the fur traders was Moody Farewell, an early resident of the community who was to some extent responsible for its name change.

Voyager Traders

Roger Conant, started an export business shipping salmon to the United States in the late 1700s. Conant's success attracted further migration into the region. A large number of the founding immigrants were United Empire Loyalists, who left the United States to live under British rule. Irish and French Canadian immigration increased as did industrialization. Oshawa and the surrounding Ontario County were also the settling grounds of a disproportionate number of 19th century Cornish immigrants during the Cornish emigration which emptied large tracts of that part of England. The surveys also ordered by Governor John Graves Simcoe, and subsequent land grants, helped populate the area. When Col. Asa Danforth laid out his York-to-Kingston road, it passed through what would later become the city of Oshawa.

In 1822, a "colonization road" known as Simcoe Street was constructed. It followed the path of an old native trail known as the Nonquon Road, running from the harbour to the area of Lake Scugog. This intersected the "Kingston Road" at what would become Oshawa's "Four Corners." Edward Skae relocated his general store approximately 800 m east to the southeast corner of this intersection in 1836, his store became a popular meeting place also because it served as the Post Office. The corner and the growing settlement that surrounded it, were known as Skae's Corners. In 1842, Skae, the postmaster, applied for official post office status, but was informed the community needed a better name. Moody Farewell was requested to ask his native acquaintances what they called the area; their reply was "Oshawa," which translates to "where we must leave our canoes." Thus, the name of Oshawa, one of the primary "motor cities" of Canada, has a name meaning "where we have to get out and walk!" The name "Oshawa" was adopted and the post office named accordingly. In 1849, the requirements for incorporation were eased, and Oshawa was incorporated as a village in 1850.

Newly established Oshawa became an industrial centre, putting into operation industries such as tanneries, asheries and wagon factories. Unfortunately due to the economy many of these industries closed shortly after opening. In 1876, Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin moved his carriage works to Oshawa from Enniskillen to take advantage of its harbour as well as the availability of a rail link.  McLaughlin constructed a two-story building, which was soon added to. This building heavily remodelled in 1929 received a new facade and being extended to the south using land where the city's goal had once stood.
The village of Oshawa became a town in 1879, in what was then called Whitby Township. Around 1890, the carriage works relocated from its Simcoe Street address to an unused furniture factory a couple of blocks northeast, this remained its site until the building burnt in 1899. Offered assistance by the town, McLaughlin elected to stay in Oshawa, building a new factory across from the old site. Rail service had been provided in 1890 by the Oshawa Railway, this was originally set up as a streetcar line, then in 1910 constructed a second "freight line" built slightly to the east of Simcoe Street. This electric line provided both streetcar and freight service, connecting central Oshawa with the Grand Trunk now Canadian National Railway, as well as the long-defunct Canadian Northern which ran through the very north of Oshawa and the Canadian Pacific, built in 1912-13. The Oshawa Railway was acquired by the Grand Trunk operation around 1910, and streetcar service was replaced by buses in 1940. After GM moved its main plants to south Oshawa in 1951, freight traffic fell, most of the tracks were removed in 1963, although a line to the older remaining "north" plant via Ritson Road remained until 2000.

Grand Trunk

In 1908 the McLaughlin Carriage Company began to manufacture Buick automobiles under the McLaughlin-Buick name. This resulted from talks between Col. R. S. McLaughlin and "Billy" Durant the entrepreneur who had created General Motors in the U.S. around the same time. In 1915 the firm acquired the manufacturing rights to the Chevrolet brand. Within three years his firm and the Chevrolet Motor Car Company of Canada merged, creating General Motors of Canada. Col. R. S. McLaughlin became the head of this new operation, and his factory expanded rapidly, eventually covering several blocks. The popularity of the automobile in the nineteen-twenties generated rapid expansion of Oshawa, which grew in population from 4,000 to 16,000 during this decade as well as in land area. In 1924, Oshawa annexed the area to its south, including both the harbour and the community of Cedardale. This growth allowed Oshawa to seek incorporation as a city, which took place March 8, 1924.

With the wealth Col McLaughlin gained in his business venture, in 1916 Robert McLaughlin built "Parkwood." one of the most stately homes in Canada. The 55-room mansion was built using inexpensive labour, and designed by Toronto architect John M. Lyle. McLaughlin lived in the house for 55 years with his wife and 5 children. The house replaced an older mansion, which was about thirty years old when it was demolished, the grounds of the earlier home had been operated as Prospect Park, and this land was acquired by the town and became its first municipal park, Alexandra Park. Parkwood today is open to the public as a national historic site.

McLaughlin Buick

On April 8, 1937, disputes between 4000 assembly line workers and General Motors management led to the Oshawa Strike, a salient event in the history of Canadian trade unionism. As the weight of the Great Depression slowly began to lift, demand for automobiles again began to grow. Workers sought higher wages, an eight hour workday, better working conditions and recognition of their union, the United Auto Workers Local 222. The Liberal government of Mitchell Hepburn had ironically, been elected on a platform of being the working man's friend, sided with the corporation and even brought in armed university students to break up any union agitation. Fortunately, these much-derided "Hepburn's Hussars" and "Sons of Mitches" were never needed as the union refused to be drawn into any violent act. The union and workers had the backing of the local population, other unions and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. On April 23 two weeks after the strike started, the company gave in to most of the workers' demands, although  it would not recognize the union.

Oshawa annexed a portion of East Whitby Township west of Park Road in 1950. Some of this area had been developed during the 1920s boom period, although it's not within the boundaries of Oshawa. The opening of the Oshawa Shopping Centre fewer than two kilometres west of the "four corners" in 1956 struck a blow to Oshawa's downtown from which it has never been able to recover. The shopping centre was built on land which had been an unproductive farm; when its owner gave up on agriculture, releasing a large area of land for the construction of a mall. The Oshawa Centre is the largest shopping mall in Ontario east of Toronto. The opening of what later became Highway 401, then known as Highway 2A, shortly after World War II led in part to the creation of the Regional Municipality of Durham in 1974. Oshawa was amalgamated with the remaining portions of East Whitby Township its present boundaries, which included the outlying villages of Columbus, Raglan and Kedron. Much of Oshawa's industry has closed over the years; however, it's still the headquarters of GM Canada as well as its major manufacturing site.

Picketing 1937

For most of the last thirty years, Oshawa has tried to promote the downtown core as a viable place to live and work. With continued failed attempts to attract new business and other projects to Oshawa. Local politicians and civic officials hoped the opening of the General Motors Centre would spark renewed interest in downtown revitalization. In addition, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology has relocated the Faculty of Education in downtown Oshawa, in a building originally built as a bank. The New Durham Region Courthouse was completed in 2009. Most of Oshawa's growth has occurred on the outer regions of the city. Legislation passed by the Ontario Government in 2005 now protects green space to the north of the city the Oak Ridges Moraine, which will eventually prohibit any further expansion of the urban boundary. This will likely result in the redevelopment of Oshawa's many 'Brownfield' sites, and may result in increased density. In fact, a large tract of land became available for development in early 2008 when the old GM "north plant" was finally demolished.

Oshawa  for many years was a separate and distinct city from Toronto, it remains in certain ways an urban centre unto itself, adjoined by several suburbs in its Census Metropolitan Area, which is entirely contained within the Greater Toronto Area. Unlike most Toronto bedroom communities, Oshawa experienced its fastest growth well before Toronto spilled over the boundaries of the now defunct Metropolitan Toronto in the 1970s and 1980s. Its industrial base and colourful labour history also make it an unusual kind of suburb. Oshawa is today considered to be part of the Greater Toronto Area. Despite this, in the mid 1990s, Oshawa residents still voted in a non-binding referendum to overwhelmingly reject any incorporation into a possible Greater Toronto Area amalgamation that would include it. This, however, may have simply reflected an overall dissatisfaction among citizens in the Greater Toronto Area when Metropolitan Toronto was itself amalgamated by the then-governing Progressive Conservative Party of Premier Mike Harris.

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