Old Hurontario Street is one of Ontario’s longest byways. Running from Lake Ontario to Georgian Bay, it passed through the Niagara Escarpment in Dufferin County. And there, if you know where to look, is an old quarry, now overgrown with trees. A little exploring reveals enormous slabs of stone, marked with drill holes for sticks of dynamite.
This is the Owen Sound quarry, or what is left of it. The silver-grey dolostone of the Escarpment has always been prized building material. Blasted out of the face of the Escarpment, huge squared slabs of stone were loaded onto the flat cars of the Credit Valley Railway and the Grand Trunk for delivery to Toronto.
Before the turn of the 20th century, slabs of Dufferin dolostone became Ontario’s parliament buildings in Queen’s Park and the old City Hall in Toronto. It was the quarries of Dufferin that supplied these building blocks. The first blasting began in 1856 on land owned by George Nicholson, an English stonemason. Strong men drilled into the grey Escarpment stone, blasting the blocks loose.
So successful was the Nicholson quarry that a larger one was opened to the north. Skilled quarrymen were brought in from Owen Sound giving the quarry its name. Over the years, rocks from the Owen Sound quarry helped build the Exhibition buildings in Toronto. Today, a 40 foot wide culvert of cut stone can still be seen near the old quarry entrance road.
Oddly enough, it was near Owen Sound that Portland cement was first made in Grey County. Cheaper and more efficient than hewing blocks of squared stone from the Niagara Escarpment, cement spelled an end to the Dufferin quarries.
Originally aired October 20th 2016
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