If These Walls Could Talk

This postcard view of Church Street shows the Aurora Public School at left, and the Trinity Anglican Church at the end of the street. The original Trinity Anglican Church building was constructed on this spot in 1846, making it an early pillar of the community.
In those days Aurora was a tiny farming community sitting astride Yonge Street and known as Machell's Corners after Richard Machell, the first man to build a general store at Wellington and Yonge. With the arrival of the railway and industry, the community grew steadily over the rest of the century, and in 1863 incorporated as the Village of Aurora. As a result of continued growth it was upgraded to a town in 1888.
The church building you see here today replaced the original in 1884. It is a fine example of the Gothic Revival architecture so popular at the time in the Victorian era.

This fascinating building was the Aurora Public School. It was completed in 1886 to replace an earlier one-room schoolhouse, and would serve as the growing community's main school for years to come. The future prime minister, Lester B. Pearson, began classes here in 1901 and apparently gained the nickname "smarty pants Pearson" for his mastery of Roman numerals.¹ The building is no longer a school and escaped the wrecker's ball in 1981 by becoming an activities centre and home to the Aurora Museum.

This fascinating photo shows a column of infantry marching in the mud past the Mechanics Hall in 1916. They are members of the 12th York Rangers. Muddy unpaved streets were the rule rather than the exception until the 1920s. At that point more people began to buy cars, and the owners of those cars expected roads to be paved to accommodate them.

A crowd of people have gathered in Aurora's Town Park to listen to speeches and celebrate VE Day - the surrender of Germany and the end of the Second World War in Europe. Town Park was originally the community's cricket ground before it was sold to the village in 1867. Ever since the park's founding it has hosted all manner of fundraisers, concerts, dances, political speeches, craft and horse shows. The Aurora Agricultural Society held Fall Fairs here that drew farmers from across York County to sell their goods and participate in competitions. The Aurora Horse Show was also held in Town Park from 1923 until it moved to Machell Park in 1971.

Boys enrolled in the Queen's York Rangers Cadet Program parade in front of the Armoury in Town Park. The Armoury was built in 1874 to serve as headquarters of the Aurora contingent of the 12th York Battalion of Infantry (later the Queen's York Rangers). The Rangers continued drilling in the hall until as recently as 2012. In recognition of the long continued use of this unassuming building, it earned protected heritage status in 1991.

This house, owned at the time by the Gower Family, was originally built in 1856. You can see members of the Irwin and Gower families standing out front. The simple, symmetrical Georgian style of home you see here was popular in Aurora, and many homes of this style have survived to the present.

This has been the site of Aurora's main train station since the first train arrived on May 16, 1853. You can see here some women and children on the platform, including Della Webster (second from right). Behidn them is a cart stacked high with suitcases in front of the old station, which has survived to the present with some minor alterations.

This was the Railroad Hotel, built on land adjacent to the train station by the farmer John Kirsopp. In the 1850s he built this hotel to service visitors arriving by railway. (Railway is the Canadian term and railroad the American). In a fairly short time the hotel gained a reputation as a place to engage in the illicit "whiskey business". In 1888 an editor of the Aurora Banner deemed the hotel "without doubt the worst place inside the corporation."¹ Nevertheless the building has proven long-lived and survives today in excellent condition.

This tower of snow resulted from a huge snowstorm on March 8, 1931. Mr and Mrs. Spalding are seen here posing with the structure on their quiet residential street. Aurora's quiet tree-lined streets, with their assortment of old, colourful homes, can't help but leave the visitor with the most positive impression.
The same was true over a century ago. The Brown family, visiting from Plainfield, New Jersey, visited Aurora in 1894 and wrote home to the Plainfield Courier to describe the experience.

The grand home that once stood on this spot belonged to Joseph Fleury, Aurora's leading businessman and founder of the company that manufactured ploughs sold across North America.
The home he built here, named Inglehurst, was typical of those built by the captains of industry in the Victorian Era: enormous, lavish, and carefully designed to reflect one of the many eclectic architectural styles of the time. In this case the design was Gothic Revival, a style that looked back to to the late Medieval period for inspiration. Aspects of that style noticeable on Inglehurst are the tall arched windows, the tall sloping roofs, and the 'bargeboard'--the ornamental trim along the roofline that casts striking shadows in sunlight.
Inglehurst became one of Aurora's social centres and innumerable social events were held here for over a century.
The grand old mansion was purchased by the neighbouring Our Lady of Grace Church and demolished in 1980 to make way for the parking lot you see in front of you.

This home is known as Horton Place. It is one of three fine homes that dominated the northern entry to Aurora on Yonge Street, the others being Inglehurst and Hillary House which are located just up the street. It was built in 1875 by Dr. Robinson, Aurora's dental surgeon. The house was an excellent example of the Italianate style which was popularized in Ontario by the Canada Farmer journal in 1865.

Looking back east up Wellington, we see that even during the 1920s the streets were yet to be paved. On the left you can see the front of the Queen's Hotel. The Hotel was originally built in 1860 as Machell House, named after the man who first chose to build a store at this intersection. It was Aurora's largest and most elegant hotel.

Across the street from you were once located the factories of J. Fleury's Sons. They manufactured ploughs and agricultural implements that became so well known across North America that a Fleury plough was incorporated into the official town crest. The factories here had an enormous impact upon the development of the community, and would continue churning out ploughs until the 1960s.
The industrial buildings in this complex have survived to the present by taking on new tenants including present day owners Bacon Basketware Limited.
Tannery Creek runs to the west of Yonge Street was an excellent source of hydropower for Aurora's early industries, and it was here that a variety of mills and factories were situated. They included a grist mill and a tannery.

Aurora's downtown 'skyscraper', located at the far left, is the Medical Hall. Completed in 1885, it was intended to house pharmacies and medical offices, as well as other businesses and community organizations. The pharmacist who commissioned the structure died of tuberculosis shortly after its completion, and it was sold to John Rutherford who housed various pharmacies in it until 1969.

This photo shows a group of people gathered in Yonge Street for a photo. To the left the building with the steeple was the Town Hall. Built in 1876 the Town Hall served a huge array of community functions, from fire hall to council chamber, farmer's market and auditorium. For decades much of Aurora's community life revolved around this Italianate-style building.