Mississauga
Mississauga is a Canadian city in the province of Ontario. Situated on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, it borders Toronto to the east, Brampton to the north, Milton to the northwest, and Oakville to the southwest. With a population of 717,961 as of 2021, Mississauga is the seventh-most populous municipality in Canada, third-most in Ontario, and second-most in the Greater Toronto Area after Toronto itself. However, for the first time in its history, the city's population declined according to the 2021 census, from a 2016 population of 721,599 to 717,961, a 0.5 per cent decrease.
The growth of Mississauga was initially attributed to its proximity to Toronto. However, during the latter half of the 20th century, the city attracted a diverse and multicultural population. Over time, it built up a thriving, transit-oriented central business district of its own; the Mississauga City Centre. Malton, a neighbourhood of the city located in its northeast end, is home to Toronto Pearson International Airport, Canada's busiest airport, as well as the headquarters of many Canadian and multinational corporations. Mississauga is not a traditional city, but is instead an amalgamation of three former villages, two townships, and a number of rural hamlets that were significant population centres, with none being clearly dominant, prior to the city's incorporation that later coalesced into a single urban area.
Indigenous people have lived in the area for thousands of years, and Mississauga is situated on the traditional territory of the Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabeg people, including the namesake Mississaugas. Most of present-day Mississauga was founded in 1805 as Toronto Township within York County, and became part of Peel County when new counties were formed by splitting off parts of the original county in 1851. Mississauga itself was established in 1968 as a town, and was reincorporated as a city in 1974, when Peel was restructured into a regional municipality.
Etymology
The name Mississauga comes from the Anishinaabe word Misi-zaagiing, meaning ' Great River-mouth'.The city's residents are called Mississaugans. However, the city is commonly referred to as Sauga, and thus its residents are also called Saugans.
History
Palaeo-Indigenous period (9000–8500 BCE)
A single site in Mississauga with Hi-Lo projectile points was registered in the Ontario Ministry of Culture database of archaeological sites. Lake Ontario was much smaller at this time, and sites from this period may be 500 m into the lake.Archaic period (8000–1000 BCE)
The Mississauga area experienced population growth during this period. There are 23 known Archaic sites in Mississauga, mostly in the Credit River and Cooksville Creek drainage systems. People would congregate at rapids and the mouths of these rivers to catch fish during spawning runs. They would harvest nuts and wild rice at the wetland margins in the late summer. During the late Archaic period, large cemeteries were built.Woodland period (1000 BCE – 1650 CE)
The growth in population beginning in the Archaic period continued into the Woodland period, with 23 known sites originating during this period. Pottery first appears during this period in the style of the Point Peninsula complex, and near the end of the Woodland period, the first semi-permanent villages appear. Artifacts show that these people engaged in long-distance trade, likely as part of the Hopewell tradition.In the late Woodland period, "the band level of social organization that characterized earlier cultures gave way eventually to the tribal level of the Ontario Iroquoian Tradition," and people began cultivation of crops such as maize, beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco. This led to the development of the Iroquoian-speaking Wyandot, or Huron, culture. The Lightfoot site with four to six longhouses was located on the Credit River near Mississauga's border with Brampton. Another village with many longhouses was on the Antrex site, located on a wide ridge bounded by two small tributaries of Cooksville Creek.
Arrival of the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe, and the Europeans
Around the end of the Woodland period, the Haudenosaunee, another Iroquoian confederacy, began to move into the area, and, as part of a long conflict known as the Beaver wars, they had dispersed the Wyandot by 1650. However, by 1687, the Haudenosaunee had abandoned their new settlements along the north shore of Lake Ontario.The Algonquian-speaking Anishinaabe Ojibwe people had been aligned with the Wyandot, and when they were dispersed, the Anishinaabe expanded eastward into the Credit River Valley area, clashing with the Haudenosaunee and eventually taking over when the Haudenosaunee retreated. The European traders would gather annually at the mouth of what is now known as the Credit River to give the Anishinaabe credit for the following year. "From this, the Mississauga bands at the western end of the lake became known collectively as the Credit River Mississaugas."
Toronto Township, consisting of most of present-day Mississauga, was formed on 2 August 1805 when officials from York purchased 85,000 acres of land from the Mississaugas under Treaty 14. A second treaty was signed in 1818 that surrendered 2,622 km2 of Mississauga land to the British Crown. In total Mississauga is covered by four treaties: Treaty 14, Treaty 19, Treaty 22 and Treaty 23.
Founding of Settlements
Mississauga's original villages settled included Clarkson, Cooksville, Dixie, Erindale, Lakeview, Lorne Park, Port Credit, Sheridan, and Summerville. The region became known as Toronto Township. Part of northeast Mississauga, including the Airport lands and Malton were a part of Toronto Gore Township.After the land was surveyed, the Crown gave much of it in the form of land grants to United Empire Loyalists who emigrated from the Thirteen Colonies during and after the American Revolution, as well as loyalists from New Brunswick. A group of settlers from New York State arrived in the 1830s. The government wanted to compensate the Loyalists for property lost in the colonies and encourage development of what was considered frontier. In 1820, the government purchased additional land from the Mississaugas. Additional settlements were established, including: Barbertown, Britannia, Burnhamthorpe, Churchville, Derry West, Elmbank, Malton, Meadowvale, Mount Charles, and Streetsville. European-Canadian settlement led to the eventual displacement of the Mississaugas. In 1847, the government relocated them to a reserve in the Grand River Valley, near present-day Hagersville. Pre-confederation, the Township of Toronto was formed as a local government; settlements within were not legal villages until much later.
Suburban growth and the creation of Mississauga
Except for small villages and some gristmills and brickworks served by railway lines, most of present-day Mississauga was agricultural land, including fruit orchards, through much of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. In the 1920s, cottages were constructed along the shores of Lake Ontario as weekend getaway homes for Torontonians.The Queen Elizabeth Way highway, one of the first controlled-access highways in the world, opened from Highway 27 to Highway 10 in Port Credit, in 1935 and later expanded to Hamilton and Niagara in 1939.
In 1937, 1,410.8 acres of land was sold to build Malton Airport. It became Canada's busiest airport which later put the end to the community of Elmbank.
The first prototypical suburban growth of Toronto Township began after World War II, Applewood Acres was the first major planned development near the QEW and Dixie Road, and urbanization soon rapidly expanded north and west. In 1952, Toronto Township annexed the southern portion of Toronto Gore Township. Two large new towns; Erin Mills and Meadowvale, were started in 1968 and 1969, respectively. Most of Mississauga was built out by 2005.
While the Township had many settlements within it, none of them were incorporated, and all residents were represented by a singular Township council. To reflect the community's shift away from rural to urban, council desired conversion into a town, and in 1965 a call for public input on naming it received thousands of letters offering hundreds of different suggestions. "Mississauga" was chosen by plebiscite over "Sheridan" by a vote of 11,796 to 4,331, and in 1968 the reincorporation went forward, absorbing Malton in the process. Port Credit and Streetsville remained separate, uninterested in ceding their autonomy or being taxed to the needs of a growing municipality. Political will, as well as a belief that a larger city would be a hegemony in Peel County, kept them as independent enclaves within the Town of Mississauga, but both were amalgamated into Mississauga when it reincorporated as a city in 1974. At this time, Mississauga annexed lands west of Winston Churchill Boulevard from Oakville in the northwest, in exchange for lands in the northernmost extremity south of Steeles Avenue which were transferred to Brampton. That year, Square One Shopping Centre opened; it has since expanded several times.
On 10 November 1979, a 106-car freight train derailed on the CP rail line while carrying explosive and poisonous chemicals just north of the intersection of Mavis Road and Dundas Street. One of the tank cars carrying propane exploded, and since other tank cars were carrying chlorine, the decision was made to evacuate nearby residents. With the possibility of a deadly cloud of chlorine gas spreading through Mississauga, 218,000 people were evacuated. Residents were allowed to return home once the site was deemed safe. At the time, it was the largest peacetime evacuation in North American history. Due to the speed and efficiency with which it was conducted, many cities later studied and modelled their own emergency plans after Mississauga's. For many years afterwards, the name "Mississauga" was, for Canadians, associated with a major rail disaster.
The area's incumbent local exchange carrier, Bell Canada, splits the city into five pre-1970 rate centres – Clarkson, Cooksville, Malton, Port Credit, and Streetsville. However, they are combined as a single Mississauga listing in the phone book. The first Touch-Tone telephones in Canada were introduced in Malton on 15 June 1964.
On 1 January 2010, Mississauga bought land from the Town of Milton and expanded its border by, to Highway 407, affecting 25 residents. Also in January 2010, the Mississaugas and the federal government settled a land claim, in which the band of indigenous people received $145,000,000 as just compensation for their land and lost income.