Hamilton in the early 1850s, photograph of a rare lithograph.
This town at the head of Lake Ontario would really come into its own with the railway in the 1850s. But even before, its good harbour and effective location for trading with the southwestern areas of the province made it a busy urban centre. Accordingly, this seems a good place to close, on the edge of the railway era, as Hamilton's sizeable hotels with their horse-drawn "omnibuses" to fetch customers suggest the new pace of faster travel, wider trade, and larger growth that the railways would bring to central Canadian urban communities.
Courtesy: John Ross Robertson Collection, Metropolitan Toronto Public Library Board
