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An interesting bit of trivia about nearby County road 2 (from Wikipedia)
Highway 2 was the first roadway assumed under the maintenance of the Department of Highways (today's Ministry of Transportation of Ontario). The 73.5-kilometre (45.7 mi) section from theRouge River to Smith's Creek, now Port Hope, was inaugurated on August 21, 1917 as The Provincial Highway. On June 7, 1918, the designation was extended east to the Quebec border.[4]
[edit]Footpaths
A painting of Kingston Road east of Toronto in the 1830s.
The forerunners to Highway 2 are numerous paths constructed during the colonization of Ontario. While some portions may have existed as Indian trails for hundreds of years, the first recorded construction along what would become Highway 2 was in late October 1793, when Captain Smith and 100 Queen's Rangers returned from carving The Governor's Road 20 miles (32 km) through the thick forests between Dundas and the present location of Paris. John Graves Simcoe was given the task of defending Upper Canada (present day Ontario) from America following the revolution and with opening the virgin territory to settlement. After establishing a "temporary" capital at York, Simcoe ordered an inland route constructed between Cootes Paradise at the tip of Lake Ontario and his proposed capital of London. By the spring of 1794, the road was extended as far as La Tranche, now the Thames River, in London. In 1795, the path was connected with York. The recently immigrated native American Asa Danforth was awarded the task, for which he would be compensated $90 per mile.[5] Beginning on June 5, 1799, the road was extended eastwards. Danforth was hired once more, and tasked with clearing a 10-metre (33 ft) road east from York through the bush, with 5 metres (16 ft) (preferably in the centre) cut to the ground. It was carved as far as Port Hope by December,[6] and to the Trent River soon after. Danforth's inspector and acting surveyor general William Chewett declared the road "good" for use in the dead of winter, but "impassible" during the wet summers, when the path turned to a bottomless mud pit. He went on to suggest that rather than setting aside land for government officials which would never be occupied, the land be divided into 200 acres (81 ha) lots for settlers who could then be tasked with statute labour to maintain the path.[6] Danforth agreed, but the province insisted otherwise and only four settlers took up residence along the road; like many other paths of the day, it became a quagmire.[7]
Danforth's road did not always follow the same path as today's Kingston Road. Beginning near Victoria Park Avenue and Queen Street East, the road can be traced along Clonmore Avenue, Danforth Road, Painted Post Drive, Military Trail and Colonel Danforth Trail. Other sections of the former roadway exist near Port Hope and Cobourg,[8][9] as well as within Grafton.[10] Otherwise the two roads more or less overlap. As the route straying through Scarborough avoided many of the settlers who had taken up residence near the lake, Danforth's road was bypassed by 1814 by William Cornell and Levi Annis. The Cornell Road (as it was known for a short time) shortened the journey from Victoria Park to West Hill, but remained mostly impassible like Danforth's route to the north. Finally succumbing to increasing pressures, the government raised funds to straighten the road and extend it to Kingston. The work was completed by 1817 and the road renamed The Kingston Road.
[edit]The Provincial Highway
Beginning in 1935, McQuesten applied the concept of a second roadway to several projects along Highway 2:[11] a 4 mi (6.4 km) stretch west of Brockville,[12][13] a 4.5 km (2.8 mi) stretch from Woodstock eastward,[12] and a section betweenBirchmount Road and east of Morningside Avenue in Scarborough Township.[13] When widening in Scarborough reached the Highland Creek ravine in 1936, east of Morningside, the Department of Highways began construction on a new bridge over the large valley, bypassing the former alignment around West Hill.[14] From here the highway was constructed on a new alignment to Oshawa, avoiding construction on the congested Highway 2.[15] As grading and bridge construction neared completion between Highland Creek and Ritson Road in September 1939, World War II broke out and gradually money was siphoned from highway construction to the war effort.[11]
A portion of the highway in the area of Morrisburg was permanently submerged by the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958. The highway was rebuilt along a Canadian National Railway right-of-way in the area to bypass the flooded region. The town of Iroquois was also flooded, but was relocated 1.5 kilometres north rather than abandoned. This event led to the nickname of The Lost Villages for a number of communities in the area.[16]
On January 1, 1998, most of the former length of Highway 2 was downloaded. Downloading transfers the highway from provincial responsibility to the counties or municipalities that each section lies within, with the route losing its King's Highway designation in the process. Only a short section remains, east of Gananoque.
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