Bringing Back Main Street in Morrisburg

Abstract

The suggestion that the Municipality of South Dundas should look at developing and implementing a Main Street Morrisburg Streetscape Project was highlighted in a recently completed report. The report was conducted under the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs’ First Impressions Community Exchange (FICE) program. The FICE report in question was provided to the Municipality of South Dundas by representatives from the Town of Gananoque in September 2016 and this project was one of the major recommended action items that was contained within it (Zandbergen, 2016).For more than half a century, the Village of Morrisburg has lacked a proper Main Street Business District. It all started back in the mid-1950’s when about a third of the Village of Morrisburg, including the Main Street area, which was the original business district was lost forever under a wall of water. This was caused by the flooding required to construct the St. Lawrence Seaway due to the need to deepen the seaway to allow larger ships to navigate the river. In the process, Lake St. Lawrence was created. Because the flooding included significant parts of Morrisburg (including the central business district) along with other entire villages like Farran’s Point and Aultsville in Eastern Ontario, Morrisburg is included in some publications as what has become known as the Lost Villages.Keywords: Streetscape, First Impressions Program, Main Street, Business District, Lost Villages