Postcard Memories is a series of historic views, stories, and photos of Bradford and the area, a trip down memory lane on a Saturday morning.
Railroads brought an end to frontiers wherever they went, their presence and power promoting the spread of civilization and enabling trade to flow.
This was certainly the case with Bradford.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, having tracks come through your community was like winning the lottery. It meant access to distant markets. It meant better communication to the outside world. It meant businesses could flourish.
In short, it meant prosperity.
That’s why people in early Bradford – not just the town itself but indeed the entire township – looked forward to news that surfaced in 1836 that the legislature of Upper Canada had passed a bill authorizing a railway from Toronto to Lake Simcoe. It was a virtual certainty that the proposed railway would pass through Bradford.
Unfortunately, such dreams went unrealized for more than a decade. It wasn’t until 1849 that the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Railway (OS+HR) was chartered and that construction of the line north from Toronto began.
The tracks reached Bradford on June 15, 1853, and continued to Barrie that autumn, completing the line as originally realized.
As predicted, the railway was an immediate boon to Bradford. Vast amounts of agricultural produce, primarily livestock and grain at the time, were shipped from Bradford and other stops along the railway, earning its colloquial ‘Oats, Straw and Hay Railway’ name.
The OS+HR went bankrupt in 1859 and was taken over by the government as the Northern Railroad, but this had little impact on Bradford’s burgeoning role as a rail hub.
Agricultural produce from as far away as Alliston — which wasn’t reached by rail until 1879 — was shipped out from Bradford. The siding was so busy that wagons heavy with wheat were at times lined up to Bond Head as farmers waited their turn to load their produce into rail cars.
Visiting farmers brought business to town. They drank at taverns, shopped at stores, sought the services of craftsmen, and even slept in hotels.
It wasn’t just farm goods that were shipped out through Bradford, though. Timber harvested from area forests and fish caught on Lake Simcoe were also transported by rail.
Bradford flourished. The population, just a few hundred in 1850, swelled to 1,200 two decades later.
By the end of the 19th century, Bradford was such a busy transhipment centre that the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) — the successor of the Northern Railway — decided to replace the original station with a larger, more modern one reflective of Bradford’s prominent.
The new station, built in 1900, measured 70 feet by 20 feet, and incorporated features typical of a pre-war GTR station, including noticeably deep-set eaves. Inside, there was a baggage and freight room on one end, a waiting room on the other, and ticket and stationmaster’s offices in the middle.
The station continued to ship agricultural goods in vast qualities, including by now vegetables from the Holland Marsh, through the 1960s.
By the end of the century, however, freight traffic had dwindled and was replaced by commuter service. GO Transit purchased the station in 1998 and invested heavily to update and remodel the 100-year-old building.
But even as GO Transit was bringing the station into the present, efforts were made to restore it to its original outward appearance, which included the removal of a 1950s addition.
The station’s original sign hangs in the Bradford West Gwillimbury Public Library.
The railway station represents a powerful reminder of Bradford’s heritage and the power that trains had, and continue to have, in shaping communities across Canada.
