Mississauga is where Toronto begins.
At least it is from a municipal place name perspective.
The area we now know as the City of Mississauga was originally named Toronto Township by British colonial officials in 1805 on land purchased from the Mississaugas of the Credit.
Derived from the Mohawk word ‘tkaronto,’ its original meaning identified a particular place in present-day Orillia, 140 kilometres northeast, ‘where there are trees standing in the water’ at the narrows where Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching connect.
That gives the City of Mississauga the unique distinction of being one of the only places in southern Ontario to maintain a connection to Indigenous languages from colonial contact to present day.
Mississauga Transit gets set to hit the road, 1974. (Image courtesy Museums of Mississauga)
It was the French who brought the word south, using it on maps to identify the ‘Passage de Taronto,’ their canoe route between ‘Lac Taronto,’ today’s Lake Simcoe, and Lake Ontario, where they built Fort Taronto near the mouth of the Humber River.
However, when the British arrived to colonize the area in 1792, Lieutenant-Governor John Graves Simcoe ordered the removal of all Indigenous place names. He selected the name ‘York’ for his new capital in honour of the Duke of York, the second son of George III.
Simcoe returned to English in 1804, and new administrator Alexander Grant chose Toronto as the name for the new rural township to the west of York.
As settlers arrived, more than a dozen villages and small communities were created.
There was Clarkson, Erindale, Cooksville, Dixie, Lorne Park, Lakeview, Malton, and Meadowvale.
Port Credit and Streetsville were also part of Toronto Township before becoming self-governing towns in 1909 and 1962, respectively.
Toronto Township was also the municipal government for smaller settlements known today as the ‘Lost Villages’ including Barberton, Britannia, Burnhamthorpe, Catholic Swamp, Clogheneagh, Credit Mission, Derry West, Elmbank, Frogmore, Hanlan, Harris’ Corners, Lisgar, McCurdy’s Corners, Mount Charles, Palestine, Pucky Huddle, Richview, Sheridan, Snider’s Corners, Summerville and Whaley’s Corners.
Local government became a reality in Ontario with the passage of the Municipalities Act in 1849, and two years later, Toronto Township became part of Peel County, which was part of a tri-county government based in Toronto, the city.
Peel County became an independent entity in 1866, with the county seat in Brampton, and Toronto Township became a self-governing municipal council in 1873.
A young resident of the new City of Mississauga. (Image courtesy Museums of Mississauga)
Then came the Second World War, which forever changed the trajectory of the township.
Canada needed to quickly amp up wartime industrial production, and Toronto Township’s rural villages and farms were ideal locations for the factories, refineries, and training grounds required for modern warfare.
These and other industrial plants needed workers, and these workers needed homes, none of which existed.
So, the Canadian government and private companies built subdivisions on or near workplaces to house employees and their families in Malton, Lakeview and Clarkson, following the lead of Canada Brick, which had built its Brickyard Village two decades earlier in Cooksville.
In 1931, Toronto Township had a population of about 7,000 people; by 1951, it was home to almost 29,000 people – and the place kept growing.
All these new people required public services and greater public representation, and by 1963, it was apparent that a new form of local governance was needed for the quickly shifting landscape.
Toronto Township Reeve Mary Fix was the first to float the idea 1956 of amalgamating Toronto Township with Malton, Port Credit and Streetsville to form a new town.
The Ontario government rejected her idea because it wanted to create a regional government structure, not another town.
The name ‘Mississauga’ was first suggested by Township Councillor (and future Trudeau-era cabinet minister) Hyl Chappell in 1963 as the name of a new city to replace the ‘out of date’ Toronto Township.
The Province countered, proposing to merge Toronto and Trafalgar Townships (Oakville) to create a new regional government called Sheridan, which would include disbanding Streetsville and Port Credit.
No one liked that idea.
Residents also hated the idea, put forth in 1966 by Thomas J. Plunkett, special commissioner for the Peel-Halton Local Government Review, to amalgamate everyone – Oakville, Burlington, Brampton, Milton, Streetsville, Port Credit and Toronto Township – into a single regional municipality called the Urban County of Mississauga.
While the fights continued over the creation of a large city, Toronto Township kept plugging along in its attempt to become a town. Its wish was finally granted on January 1, 1968, under a new name – Mississauga.
Within two years, the new Mississauga town council began advocating to become a city by merging with the indebted Town of Port Credit and annexing the independently-minded Town of Streetsville, led by the independently-minded mayor of Streetsville, Hazel McCallion.
Finally, in 1973, after years of fights, resistance and negotiations, the Government of Ontario announced Peel County’s ten municipalities would be merged into three: Caledon to the north, Brampton in the middle and Mississauga to the south.
The Act to Establish the Regional Municipality of Peel became law on June 22, 1973, and the Regional Municipality of Peel, the Town of Caledon and the Cities of Brampton and Mississauga were officially incorporated on January 1, 1974.
The new city was kicking up its heels at the first-ever City Day Parade in 1974. (Image courtesy Museums of Mississauga)
You can hear more stories about the people and events that helped shape Mississauga via our podcast, We Built This City: Tales of Mississauga, available on your favourite podcast platform or from our website.