Stoney Creek was a municipality which is now part of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. This article will only deal with matters up to its amalgamation with Hamilton.

Geography and population

The community Stoney Creek is located on the south shore of western Lake Ontario, into which feed the watercourse of Stoney Creek as well as several other minor streams. The historic area exists below the Niagara Escarpment while more recent annexations took place on the Escarpment.

Before amalgamation, it had roughly sixty thousand inhabitants. Old stock American Loyalists and emigrants from the British Isles and their descendants have long been displaced by waves of Dutch and Italian immigrants -- leading to the potentially offensive nickname Tony Creek.

History and attractions

Historic Stoney Creek was settled by Loyalists after the American Revolution and was nondescript until it was put on the map as it were by the Battle of Stoney Creek during the War of 1812. Although only several dozen soldiers were killed in the battle, it was an important since outnumbered British regulars and Canadian militia defeated invading Americans. The site of the Battle of Stoney Creek near Centennial Parkway and King Street has been preserved as Battlefield House (http://www.city.hamilton.on.ca/culture-and-rec/MUSEUMS/battlefield/default.asp) with its associated museum, monument and park.

Branches of the Bruce Trail provide access to Battlefield Park as well as the Devil's Punch Bowl. The latter is marked by a large illuminated cross and offers an excellent lookout for both Stoney Creek and Hamilton. Other green spaces of note include Fifty Point Conservation Area, which includes camping and a small craft harbour.

On a more commercial note, the Winona Peach Festival serves up homegrown fruit, crafts and music. Like the peach festival, the Stoney Creek Flag Festival is also held every summer. The Stoney Creek Dairy on King Street -- with a stylized Battlefield Monument in its logo-- has offered frozen treats to people in the region for decades under a variety of ownership. Eastgate Mall straddles the former border between Hamilton and Stoney Creek.

Economy and transportation

Due to the temperate environment on the western end of the Niagara Peninsula, the Stoney Creek area in eastern Wentworth County was and still is known for fruit growing. In recent decades, as the quality and reputation of Ontario wines grew, Stoney Creek became part of the fringes of the Niagara winery region.

Agriculture continued to be the major employer for decades, only supplanted by others as community growth brought it into closer contact with Hamilton and the great conurbation of the Golden Horseshoe. Stoney Creek became a centre for light industry, road transportation and communiting residences, since its land costs were much lower than in neighbouring Hamilton.

Stoney Creek is served by the Queen Elizabeth Way, various current or former Ontario provincial highways and a largely irregular network of residential streets. Portions of Upper Stoney Creek are on a great grid pattern. It is poorly served by public transit in the form of the Hamilton Street Railway or HSR, which was operated in Stoney Creek by the regional government since 1974 and the megacity government since 2001.

Politics and government

Local jam merchant E.D. Smith promoted the area and served as a Wentworth MP around the turn of the 20th century. Otherwise, the most recent political tremor occurred when Tony Valeri, the federal minister of transport who supported Paul Martin as Liberal leader, defeated Sheila Copps, a former Canadian heritage minister who supported Jean Chrétien, in a bitter constituency nomination election after redistricting forced the two sitting MPs head-to-head in the formerly divided Hamilton East-Stoney Creek.

Like its bigger neighbour, Stoney Creek expanded over the 20th century to encompas more and more of its smaller neighbours like Fruitland, Winona, Vinemount, Tapleytown and Elfrida in Saltfleet Township. Town of Stoney Creek, along with five other second-tier municipalities, became part of the two-tier municipal federation called the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworthin 1974. Areas it annexed on top of the Niagara Escarpment became known as Upper Stoney Creek or Satellite City.

In 1984, it was granted city status, and was looking to challenge its more populous neighbour. However, over its residents strenuous objections, the City of Stoney Creek was amalgamated with the other municipalities of Hamilton-Wentworth Region to form a new City of Hamilton. However, its suburban voters helped ensure the first mayor of an amalgamated Hamilton came from the former suburbs.

External link

• Historical Hamilton (http://www.city.hamilton.on.ca/Visiting-Here/Historical-Hamilton/stoney-creek/default.asp)