page_title: History of Hamilton, Ontario
section_title: 1893–1905
hierarchical_section_title: History of Hamilton, Ontario / 1893–1905
caption_attribution_description: The Hamilton Street Railway funicular for crossing the Niagara escarpment.
context_page_description: Hamilton, from the point at which it was first colonized by settlers, has benefited from its geographical proximity to major land and water transportation routes along the Niagara Peninsula and Lake Ontario. Its strategic importance has created, by Canadian standards, a rich military history which the city preserves.
  Tension between maximizing economic growth and minimizing environmental damage was evident, even from the city's early development. The area between Burlington Bay and the Niagara Escarpment has been greatly altered for residential, industrial and recreational purposes. Cootes Paradise in Dundas also known as the Dundas Marsh, was a very rich wetland with plenty of fish, birds and other game. Cootes Paradise was named after Captain Thomas Coote, a British army officer of Irish extraction who was stationed in the area at the time of the American revolutionary war in the 18th century. The richness of the valley led to population, and to degradation of the marsh, although its legal protection, starting in the 1880s, and the efforts of civic officials and others, have led to it still being of great environmental importance in the 21st century.
context_section_description: Modernization and business consolidation often went hand in hand with unionization. The HSR converted to electrically powered vehicles in 1892. In keeping with the area’s reputation, the firefighters unionized in 1896.
  As it was absorbed by Hamilton Electric Light and Power Company in 1899, HSR workers joined Division (now Local) 107 of the predecessor of the current Amalgamated Transit Union.
  But it was definitely not all work and no play for local residents. In 1894, Hamilton Herald newspaper and cigar store owner Billy Carroll established the Around the Bay Road Race. The route circumnavigates Burlington Bay and, although it is not a proper marathon, it is the longest continuously held long distance foot race in North America. It was won by such sporting greats as William "Billy" Sherring, Tom Longboat and Sam Mellor.
  Adelaide Hoodless and other founded the first Women’s Institute in Saltfleet Township (Stoney Creek) in 1897 and began her educational campaign for home economics. A year after she died in 1910, one of Hamilton’s many new schools was named in her honour.
  Hamiltonians, like other residents of the colonies, discovered one of the darker sides of British Imperialism when the South African War broke out in 1899. Men from Wentworth County and other Canadians volunteered to serve in the Canadian Mounted Rifles or North-West Mounted Police contingents. Although they excelled at the bitter guerrilla war there against the Boers, its conclusion in 1902 served as an omen for the future.
  Ernest D’Israeli Smith, after being frustrated by paying to have his fruit transported from the Stoney Creek area, had founded a company in 1882 to market directly to wholesalers and eliminate the middleman. Smith & Sons Ltd. continues operating today, and has since the early 20th century has sold manufactured preserves and jams. Its namesake founder served as the Conservative MP for Wentworth around the start of the 20th century.
  By the end of the 19th century, symbolically marked by the death of Queen Victoria in the first days of the 20th century, Hamilton expanded to the approximate limits of the Mountain Brow to the south, Chedoke Creek to the west and Gage Avenue to the east.
  Through natural increase and immigration, the urban Hamilton-rural Wentworth population balance shifted so much that in 1904 the federal ridings were redistributed. While the total number of MPs remained the same, two were now from the city proper (Hamilton East and Hamilton West) and one represented the rest of the county.
caption: Hamilton Street Railway (HSR) streetcar in 1909. The HSR transitioned from horse-drawn public transit to electrical-powered vehicles in 1892.
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