History
Steel was made on this shoreline for over a hundred years. The works ran around the clock, and the light from them carried across the bay.
At its height the plant employed tens of thousands of people. Then the furnaces went out, one by one, and eight hundred acres went quiet behind a fence.
For over a century this stretch of Hamilton's waterfront powered the Steel Capital of Canada, and what was made here built the country.
At its peak, tens of thousands of steelworkers passed through the gates of this site every week. The north end of the city grew up around the plant, and generations of families measured their working lives in shifts on this land.
As the industry changed and operations scaled back, most of these eight hundred acres went quiet — fenced, undeveloped, and cut off from the city around them. The furnaces stopped. The rail, the deep water, the power and the skills did not go anywhere.
How the land got here
What the plan commits to
From the archive
Chronology
Dates to be confirmed against the Stelco and City of Hamilton archives before publication.