The first railroad in Upper Canada

On the first Saturday of June, 1853 the first train puffed into Newmarket on the tracks of the first railroad built in Upper Canada. Called the Ontario, Huron & Simcoe Railway, it eventually linked Toronto to Collingwood on Georgian Bay, but that June day the tracks ended here.

The coming of the railroad also cinched Newmarket’s role as the business centre of the vast and wealthy hinterland north of Toronto. Communities missed by the tracks withered and disappeared, those with stations grew and prospered.

Businesses moved here, mills and factories were built and the population grew. It has never stopped growing.

The railway station was replaced with a larger building twice in the first half century. Today’s railway station was built in 1899 and has been restored by the Chamber of Commerce as a symbol of our business success.

- Terry Carter