A Hub of Activity

A Hub of Activity. . , For two centuries, the beach strip has served as the gateway for Hamilton’s successful trade and commerce., The Canal , Although small boats could navigate a narrow shallow cut through the Beach Strip sand bar, Hamilton business leaders saw a commercial need for a deeper and wider opening. The canal opened in 1832, but work on it never really stopped. The canal had to be constantly dredged to keep sand from choking the channel, and to accommodate ever larger ships. Originally 60 feet wide, by the end of World War II the canal had been expanded to its current proportions, 2690 feet long, 351 feet wide, and 31 feet deep., Lighthouse and Keeper’s Dwelling , A wooden lighthouse, built in 1837, safeguarded ships approaching the canal. The light and the keeper's dwelling were destroyed by fire in 1856. They were replaced by a 55 foot high, circular limestone tower (1858) and a brick one-storey lighthouse keeper's dwelling (1857), now the oldest surviving buildings on the Beach Strip (designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1996). The lighthouse served as a vital aid to navigation for cargo ships and pleasure craft until it was decommissioned in 1961. Its main beacon was then installed on the adjacent lift bridge., Railways , In 1876, the Hamilton and Northwestern Railway laid track across the beach as part of an ambitious project to connect Port Dover, Hamilton, Barrie and Collingwood. After 1896, passengers travelled to the Beach on the more frequent, if less glamorous, service provided by the streetcars of the Hamilton Radial Electric Railway. The last of these electric streetcars crossed the Beach Strip in 1929, to be replaced by automobiles and buses., Crossing the Canal , A schooner crashed into and destroyed the first swing bridge across the canal, shortly after it was constructed in 1830. Although a swing bridge for the railway was constructed in 1875, pedestrians and vehicles continued to rely on a scow-ferry, which was drawn back and forth by heavy chains. The ferry service was discontinued in 1896 with the completion of a second swing bridge, serving electric streetcars and other traffic (shown above). It was replaced in 1922 with a bascule bridge, the first of the canal bridges designed for the use of automobiles (shown below). When a ship collided with and destroyed it in 1952, the bascule bridge was replaced with the combined railway and road lift bridge still used today. The Burlington Bay Skyway Bridge opened in 1958 to alleviate heavy traffic through the Beach Strip. Originally an 8,400 foot, four lane bridge arcing 120 feet above the canal, the Skyway was twinned in 1985. Beach residents now live in the shadow of two, massive, five-lane bridges.,