Olden days of

Richmond Hill, Ontario

Driving north on Yonge Street in the last decade of the twentieth century, accelerating to catch a green light at the Highway 7 intersection, our imaginations link past and present along this two-hundred-year-old main street of Richmond Hill. GO Bus shelters of the 1990s are transformed into radial railway stops of the 1920s. Traffic lights remind us of the nineteenth-century Langsstaff toll-gate. Four lanes of paved highway fade away to become the dirt trail of late eighteenth-century Yonge Street.

The future, too, announces its presence along this Yonge Street lifeline. Signs of growth are everywhere. Population figures rise annually on the Richmond Hill town limits sign near Langstaff Road. New commercial and residential developments sprout on the left and right as we drive north across the Carrville Road/ 16th Avenue intersection. How significant that a real estate office should occupy the southeast corner of Yonge Street and Major Mackenzie Drive, where Richmond Hill pioneer Abner Miles first settled almost two centuries ago.

Metropolitan Railway locomotive 1 at Richmond Hill 1897

1900 – Richmond Hill Methodist Church

A 1905 photo by Edmund Zavitz of tree planting in Guelph

Metropolitan station in North Toronto was located at Yonge Street and Birch Avenue on the north side of the CPR whose station was on the south side. Circa 1905.

C.N.R. #2631 at Richmond Hill Apr. 13 1955

Dufferin Street in Richmond Hill. April 30, 1940

Richmond Hill C.N.R. Station - 1955

Highway 401 and Highway 11 (Yonge Street) Cloverleaf in Toronto, facing north towards Richmond Hill (1958)

Old Fulton-Vanderburgh House, 32 Hillsview Rd., Richmond Hill, Toronto, Ontario. The house was of log construction and some original logs can be seen in the basement. The house was identified as a historical entity in 1973 when Richmond Hill observed a centennial.

"The Founding of Richmond Hill." Unveiling of an historical plaque in front of the town hall on Yonge Street, June 18, 1973. Pictured left to right are councilors David Stephenson and Louis Wainwright; regional councilor Gordon Rowe; councillors André Châteauvert and Graeme Bales; mayor William Lazenby; councilors Charles Stewart and William Corcoran; William Ormsby of the Archaeological and Historic Sites Board of Ontario; Patricia Hart, chief librarian and local historian; Russell Lynett, retiring town clerk; William Neal, first mayor of the Town of Richmond Hill; Robert Warner, chairman of the Centennial Committee; Garfield Wright, chairman of the Regional Municipality of York; Reverend Earl Gerber of St. John's Anglican Church, Jefferson; and regional councilor Lois Hancey."

Kids in early days of Richmond Hill, Ontario

Kids in early days of Richmond Hill, Ontario

North Yonge Railways Station - Richmond Hill, Ontario

“In affectionate remembrance of Mary”Presbyterian Church Cemetery; Richmond Hill, Ontario.

The family of Jacob Eyer and Elizabeth Heise on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary.

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The family of Jacob Eyer and Elizabeth Heise on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary.

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War Memorial in honor of the men of Richmond Hill who gave their live in the great war

Presbyterian Church Cemetery; Richmond Hill, Ontario.

Presbyterian Church Cemetery; Richmond Hill, Ontario.

Mrs. Anderson from Dwyer Hill Ontario milking her cow in the early 1900's. Her family farm would have been on the North West corner of the intersection of Dwyer Hill Road

and Franktown Road which is west of Richmond Ontario.

Tunnel for pedestrian / bicycle path, under railroad tracksNear Newberry Park; Richmond Hill, Ontario.