The Railway Comes to Midland

Jamie stepped up to fill a hole in the schedule, so thanks for that.  Back in the day, as they say, Port Hope had aspirations to supersede the upstart community of Toronto and felt that if it had access to the interior of Ontario and to the lakes above the falls it would succeed.  In those days every town wanted a railroad and plans were often drawn that never got built.  One such example was the Port Hope to Peterborough line.  But a line through to Lindsey did get finished in 1857.  A line from Cobourg went to Peterborough got built by using a trestle over Rice Lake but that failed too.  Eventually the Port Hope line struck a branch off to Peterborough.

Adolf Hugel, a Port Hope business man, bought this railway in 1871 for $250,000.00 with the vision of expanding it to a regional network but the recession of 1873 depressed commodity prices and construction slowed.  Hugel's Land Company, though, started surveying the Midland Town Plan in 1872 with Midland Ave., which ended at the site of the station, expected to be the main street.  The tracks finally arrived in 1879 but by then Hugel's health was failing and he passed the management on.

Railways didn't actually make a lot of money - the money came from developing the land and selling it, from shipping to the people that bought the land and from shipping frieght which, in those days, was raw materials.  Lumber - the Cook Mill was built in 1871, wheat - the first mill was proposed in 1880 and iron and coal all passed through Midland.  By 1876 the line owned 23 locomotives, 250 frieght cars and 50 passenger cars.

Hugel came from Alsace to the States in 1853 and then moved to Port Hope in 1863 and bought into the Railroad in 1872.  George Cox, who started as a telegraph operator, found his strength was selling, especially insurance and became the richest man in Ontario and one of the richest in the country.  He owned 14 different financial institutions in Toronto late in the century and died in 1907.  He invested in the Midland RR and became President, overseeing a rise in the stock price from $0.70 to $4.00.  Midland had a station that burned down and was rebuilt and then torn down to be replaced  and torn down again.  As it was at the end of a line it had a roundhouse for turning the trains around.

Jamie had a marvellous variety of photos showing views of the harbour, the docks, the industry and the town as well as a selection of shots of trains and train wrecks.  Eventually the Grand Trunk bought the line and that was incorporated in the CNR.  Of course the small lines have mostly disappeared but Midland can still point to the heritage of its rail history and now we can appreciate all the green space down by the water.