Barrie
Barrie is a city in Central Ontario, Canada, about north of Toronto. The city is within Simcoe County and located along the shores of Kempenfelt Bay. Barrie is a single-tier municipality separated from the surrounding county.
The city is part of the extended urban area in southern Ontario known as the Greater Golden Horseshoe. As of the 2021 census, the city's population was 147,829, while the census metropolitan area had a population of 212,856 residents. The area was first settled during the War of 1812 as a supply depot for British forces, and Barrie was named after Sir Robert Barrie. The city has grown significantly in recent decades due to the emergence of the technology industry.
It is connected to the Greater Golden Horseshoe by Ontario Highway 400 and GO Transit. Significant sectors of the city's diversified economy include education, healthcare, information technology and manufacturing. Communities to its south, particularly Innisfil, New Tecumseth, and Newmarket have developed rapidly since the turn of the twenty-first century. The city is notable for being one centre of the 1985 United States–Canada tornado outbreak.
History
Before 1900
At its inception, Barrie was an establishment of houses and warehouses at the foot of the Nine Mile Portage from Kempenfelt Bay to Fort Willow, an indigenous transportation route that existed centuries before Europeans arrived in Simcoe County. The portage linked Kempenfelt Bay through Willow Creek, connecting Lake Simcoe to the Nottawasaga River which flows into Georgian Bay off Lake Huron.Barrie played an integral role in the War of 1812. During the war, the city became a supply depot for British forces and, in addition, the Nine Mile Portage was adopted by the British military as a key piece of their supply line which provided a strategic path for communication, personnel and vital supplies and equipment to and from Fort Willow and Georgian Bay/Lake Huron. Today, the Nine Mile Portage is marked by signs along roads in Barrie and in Springwater Township. The scenic path from Memorial Square to Fort Willow is accessible to visitors year-round.
In 1815, Treaty 16 was signed, which transferred 250,000 acres of land from the Chippewa people to the colonial government. In 1818, Treaty 18 was signed, which resulted in the surrender of an additional 1,592,000 acres of land. The British supply depot would continue to prove useful for portaging Europeans and settlers making their way to northern and western Upper Canada.
The city was named in 1833 after Sir Robert Barrie, who was in charge of the naval forces in Canada and frequently commanded forces through the city and along the Nine Mile Portage. Barrie was also the final destination for a branch of the Underground Railroad. In the mid-19th century, this network of secret routes allowed many American slaves to enter Barrie and the surrounding area. This contributed to the development of nearby Shanty Bay. In 1846, the population of Barrie was roughly 500, mostly from England, Ireland and Scotland. A private school, three churches, a brick courthouse and a limestone jail,, were in operation. Local businesses included three taverns, six stores, three tanneries, a wagon maker, a bakery, a cabinet maker and six shoemakers, as well as a bank.
By 1869, Barrie became the county seat of Simcoe County, flourishing with a population of over 3,000 people. With this population increase came the establishment of prominent businesses and landmarks. In 1850, Edward Marks had established the Barrie Hotel, the oldest continuously running hotel in Barrie, James and Joseph Anderton established the Anderton Brewery in 1869, which would go on to be one of Barrie's largest employers for years, and Edmund Lally opened one of the Canadian Bank of Commerce's original branches in Barrie in 1867. A line of the Northern Railway was opened in 1853, connecting Barrie with Toronto and several other municipalities in Simcoe County and Muskoka. The Hamilton and North-Western Railway also ran through Barrie, and the two railways would eventually reorganize into the Northern and North Western Railway in June 1879. Allandale Station was the primary train station serving Barrie at the time. The Grand Trunk Railway purchased the original Northern Railway in 1888, and the line serving Barrie would become a branch of the Canadian National Railway. Throughout the latter half of the 19th century, steamships ran from Barrie to the Muskoka Territory, Orillia and other communities and stages were taking passengers to Penetanguishene.
The period of 1870 to 1890 defined Barrie's downtown development with a series of raging fires that sequentially destroyed multiple landmarks, giving rise to the moniker that Barrie was "among the best burning towns in Canada." Many local businesses like breweries, tanneries and sawmills depended on fire to operate, endangering the ramshackle assortment of wooden homes and buildings that made up the city centre.
One of the most destructive fires came in mid-1875 when the entire section north of Dunlop Street to Collier Street, bounded by Clapperton and Owen Streets, was reduced to ash, destroying around 20 local businesses.
20th century
In the next century, the modern streets and buildings of Barrie began to take form in a massive rebuilding process. Other landmarks to eventually burn down over the years include the Queen's Hotel and two of Barrie's largest and most prominent companies; the Sevigny Carriage Shop and the Anderton Brewery in 1916.During the First World War, residents of Barrie helped to construct Canadian Forces Base Borden as a means of additional support and to serve as a major training centre of Canadian Expeditionary Force battalions. The base would open on July 11, 1916, and since then has become the largest Canadian Forces Base in Canada, playing an important role through the remainder of the war by training some 350,000 troops for deployment in Europe. During World War II, the Royal Canadian Navy named a .
On September 7, 1977, a private aircraft, owned by Falconbridge Nickel Mines Ltd, dropped altitude to in dense fog and struck CKVR's transmitter tower, killing all five people aboard the plane and destroying the tower and antenna. The station's auxiliary tower was also destroyed with damage to the main studio building. CKVR returned to the air on September 19 at a reduced power of 40,000 watts until a new tower was built in 1978.
The 1980s and 1990s was a period of substantial growth for Barrie, with the population tripling in the span of 25 years. In 1981, the city had a population of 38,423; in 2006, Barrie had 128,430 residents living within city limits. The first larger scale developments would begin during this time, including high-density waterfront condos and the new Barrie City Hall which started construction in October 1985.
On May 31, 1985, Barrie was struck by a devastating F4 tornado that killed eight people. Over 600 homes were damaged or destroyed by the tornado, and of those roughly one-third were rendered uninhabitable. About 155 people were also injured during the storm, and the tornado remains today one of the most destructive and violent in Canadian history. The tornado caused $150 million, equivalent to $326 million CAD as of 2022.
Between June 12–13, 1987, a sculpture called Spirit Catcher by Ron Baird was moved to Barrie from Vancouver, British Columbia, where it had been exhibited as part of Expo '86. The sculpture was permanently erected at the foot of Maple Avenue on the shore of Kempenfelt Bay and has since become a major Barrie landmark and tourist attraction. However, with the re-development along the waterfront and Lakeshore Drive, the city is considering moving the Spirit Catcher to a gravel outcropping at the foot of Bayfield Street.
21st century
On January 10, 2004, the former Molson's plant was found to be home to an illegal marijuana grow-op housing an estimated 30,000 marijuana plants with an estimated street value of $30 million ; at the time, it was the largest marijuana grow-op bust in Canada's history. The former owner of the brewery, who claimed to be unaware of the operation occurring, attempted to gain the profits from the selling of the property after the Government of Ontario forcefully sold it, which was successful. In 2020, the owner attempted to sue the government again, claiming that the costs from the governments investigation into the property and the civil costs were misconduct and should've been paid back to him in full. A lower court ruled in favor of the owner, but the government filed an appeal with the Court of Appeal for Ontario, which is still undecided.Barrie's Park Place was chosen to host Live 8 Canada on July 2, 2005. The overall success of the concert helped support a plan to convert the former Molson Park lands into a commercial district. Construction of Park Place began in 2008 but was temporarily interrupted by the Great Recession and an Ontario Municipal Board appeal that proposed a rezoning of the Park Place lands that was initially denied by the City of Barrie. Construction resumed in 2010.
An explosion in the Royal Thai restaurant, housed in the landmark Wellington Hotel at the "Five Points" intersection in downtown Barrie, occurred at 11:20pm on December 6, 2007. The fire quickly spread to several neighbouring buildings and firefighters battled the blaze well into the following morning, requiring assistance from other Simcoe County fire services. Officials estimated the damages to be in the millions. The 100-year-old Wellington Hotel building collapsed later in the morning. On February 17, 2008, two people were charged in connection with the fire after the Ontario Fire Marshal's office concluded the explosion and subsequent fire were the result of arson.
In 2013, Barrie was twinned with the English town of Harrogate as a result of Sir Robert Barrie's close connection to it.
On July 15, 2021, a tornado struck neighbourhoods in south Barrie, leaving several people injured and causing serious damage to property. Environment Canada categorized it as an EF2 on the Enhanced Fujita scale.