A Brief History of Kitchener Ontario

For most Ontarians, the history of their region is a blank, especially if they didn't pay attention in school. Pieces of it are posted on plaques, but no one apart from tourists ever bothers to look at them. The only things they know about what happened before they were born, they accidentally learned by glancing at the headlines in a stack of old newspapers they found in the basements of their Port Credit real estate. On the off chance that you might be one of the few people who are interested in remedying your ignorance, we've created this article on the history of Kitchener, Ontario.

One of the few basic facts in the history of Ontario is that practically everything from what would become Thunder Bay to the land Leslieville homes are built on was once occupied by tribes of Native Americans and later settled by the British, from whom most of us are descended. Kitchener, Ontario throws this fact out the window straight off the bat because although the area was originally settled by the Six Nations tribes, they turned around and sold it to an American Loyalist named Richard Beasley in 1784 who then parceled it out into farm plots and distributed it among German Mennonite families from Pennsylvania.

The community these Mennonites formed was originally called Sand Hills. It was extremely remote and rough, consisting of moraines, swamplands, and rivers. The Mennonites weren't looking to build tourist cottages and create real estate careers for themselves; however, they wanted somewhere where they would be left alone to live their traditional lifestyles. So despite the hardships they persevered, creating farms, sawmills, roads, and apple orchards, the names of which (Schneider, Bechtel, Eby, Erb, Weber, Cressman, Brubacher) still survive today.

In 1816 the government gave their settlement the name 'Township of Waterloo.' From that year until 1870 immigration was at a high point, with the success of the town drawing in more German Mennonites from all over. The presence of so many Germans necessitated a name change from Waterloo to Berlin in 1833, and the town became the seat of Waterloo County in 1853. It was only after 1856, when the Grand Trunk Railway arrived in town, that Berlin began to develop industrially and churn out developments that looked like Georgetown, Ontario homes for sale.

By June of 1912 Berlin had developed to such an extent that it was officially upgraded from township to city. During this period its factories turned out everything from shoes to automobiles. World War I brought another name change, this time to Kitchener, as the town wanted to distance itself from Canada's enemy. Hard economic times have put a damper on manufacturing, though it is still the city's main source of support. In 1981 the city would make history books once again for being the first to implement a blue box recycling program. Today the city's German heritage lives on in architecture, street names, and festivals, which help its real estate distinguish itself from Ajax homes for sale.