History of Port Credit West Village

Prior to 1891

 

The Community of Port Credit was established in 1834. Texaco Canada Ltd. located at 250 Lakeshore Road West, had been apart of the Mississauga Indian Reserve along the Credit river, that had been purchased by Frederick Chase Capreol. Capreol was an English Business man who immigrated to Canada in 1829. He obtained lots 9-14 concession 2, originally apart of the Indian Reserve.

By November 1 1889 Thomas Nightingale purchased lots 9-12 containing 12 acres, which expanded to approximately 75 by the time of closure. These lots had been apart of the broken Indian reserve of Frederick Chase Capreol. The brick yard continued production for around forty years, production ceased 1920 and the land remained vacant for 12 years before the oil refineries claimed the land and started production.

 

1891-1927  Port Credit Brick Company  

 

Thomas Nightingale opened his brick yard in Port Credit in 1891 on the site of the current Brightwater development.

After things got going he added a “stone crusher” machine, which increased brick production substantially. A crusher is a machine designed to reduce large rocks into smaller rocks, gravel, or rock dust. Port Credit bricks were used extensively for building in the area.

 

In those days, the brick business was labour-intensive. A shortage of labour around 1900 resulted in a large influx of European immigrant labourers, many of them Italians, who were recruited to work at the brick yard. Many of those men lived in bunkhouses right on the site.

 

During its brick yard era, material was extracted from a quarry excavated on the southwest side of the site above the Lake. The remnants of that quarry exist to this day in the form of a large shale pond.

 

After World War I, demand for bricks slowed and the Port Credit Brick Yard started to lose money. It was closed down in 1927 and with it went numerous local jobs.

 

An article in the Toronto Star of January 17, 1933 reported that the "property, buildings and equipment of the Port Credit brick works, along with the estate of the late W. J. Haney, owner of the property, were sold in 1929 to a group of Montreal financial interests represented by C. G. Greenshields, as part of the liquidation of the Home Bank assets, Mr. Haney having been a director of that institution."

 

Transition from bricks to oil

 

Lloyd Refineries started by L. B Lloyd was the first oil refinery to take form on the property. Purchasing 14 acres of the land in 1932 the refinery continued until a halt of financial stability posed problems for the company. They were purchased by Good Rich Oil in 1937 until 1946 when Good Rich sold to Trinidad leaseholds Canada Ltd, a subsidiary of Central Mining Co from the United Kingdom, and later renamed to Regent Refinery. In 1955 McColl-Frontenac a Canadian subset of Texaco took over the refinery, the name was changed to Texaco Canada Ltd, in 1959. The company stopped production in 1985 and removal of equipment started with tank storage.

 

1932-1937 Lloyd Refineries Ltd.

 

In 1932, fourteen acres of the former Port Credit Brick Yards property were sold to L.B. Lloyd of Lloyd's Tankers and the venture was known as the Lloyd Refineries Ltd. The goal? To erect "a modern refinery capable of handling 57,000 gallons of oil or 1,500 barrels daily."

 

Lloyd began by installing a small crude (oil) Stilling Unit and 9 storage tanks on the site in 1932. At that time, the plant was capable of processing 300 barrels per day to produce gasoline and fuel oils. The plant manager was Mr. F.K. Davis from Texas.

 

In 1935 a Dubbs Thermal cracking unit was added which increased throughput to 3000 barrels per day. Construction work was done by local refinery personnel under the direction of Universal Oil Products of Chicago.

 

The crude oil that was processed at the Lloyd Refinery came from Toledo Ohio via Chicago. Lloyd operated three tankers that transported the crude up through the Welland Canal and across Lake Ontario to Port Credit. Tankers of that era were not self-propelled but were towed by tugboats.

 

The Lloyd fleet of tanker vessels were named the Bruce Hudson, the Joan Virginia and the Roy K. Russel. They were pulled by their respective tugs; Ethel, Ajax and Muscallonge.

The Bruce Hudson turned over on one of its trips and had to be towed to Port Weller to be righted and then on to Port Credit for pump out and clean up. On another transit, her tug, Ethel, ran low on fuel oil and left Bruce adrift whereupon the S.S. Brulin came along and claimed the Bruce Hudson as salvage. Lloyds needed a court battle to reclaim her.

 

As if running a startup refining business were not headache enough, it seems that Mr. Lloyd was beset by many woes with shipping. The record suggests that the fledgling Lloyd Refinery suffered a variety of costly setbacks associated with its fleet.

In the fall of 1937 Roy K Russel ran aground in Godfrey's Bay just west of the refinery. Next spring, she was refloated only to be towed to Hamilton and scrapped.  

Even the tug Ajax sank in harbor.

Only the Joan Virginia got through those years without a major incident.

 

1937 - 1946 Good Rich Oil

 

By mid-1937 Lloyd Refinery was struggling financially. The price of crude oil was increasing and finances at Lloyd were shaky. Doubtless the series of fleet-related disasters plaguing Lloyd were harmful to the company's financial health.

It was at this point that Good Rich Oil from East Toronto stepped in to purchase the business. It was Good Rich Refinery.

With Good Rich at the helm there followed a sustained run of years during which the refinery business and the Port Credit community appear to have flourished.

In order to increase capacity Good Rich revamped the Dubbs unit in 1939 and converted it to a "two coil selective cracking unit" which increased production to 4,000 barrels per day.

By mid-1937 Lloyd Refinery was struggling financially. The price of crude oil was increasing and finances at Lloyd were shaky. Doubtless the series of fleet-related disasters plaguing Lloyd were harmful to the company's financial health.

It was at this point that Good Rich Oil from East Toronto stepped in to purchase the business. It was Good Rich Refinery.

With Good Rich at the helm there followed a sustained run of years during which the refinery business and the Port Credit community appear to have flourished.

In order to increase capacity Good Rich revamped the Dubbs unit in 1939 and converted it to a "two coil selective cracking unit" which increased production to 4,000 barrels per day.

Product shipments by rail increased after Good Rich took with crude oil coming in from as far away as Texas.

In 1940 a Tetraethyl Lead facility was added to enable ethyl fluid to be used in production of a premium anti-knock gasoline suitable for the new higher compression automobile engines.

By this time, the plant was producing three grades of gasoline as well as supplying the purple-dyed agricultural fuel that wartime rationing prohibited for use in private automobiles.

Business was booming for Good Rich during the war years.  Good Rich was proud of the truck fleet it operated during the war years. The semi-trailer style tank trucks had capacities ranging from 1200 to 2300 gallons which were considered large at the time. Those trucks would be dwarfed by modern standards. After the war, Good Rich had a dispute with the CNR railway and for a time all shipments were made by truck. When matters got settled, most of the shipping returned to the rail.

 

1946 - 1955 Regent Refining Company

 

Trinidad Leaseholds, a subsidiary of Central Mining Company (headquartered in the United Kingdom) operated a large refinery in Trinidad and with the war over, they came looking for an outlet in Canada. In 1946 Trinidad purchased Good Rich which first became Trinidad Leaseholds Canada Ltd and subsequently Regent Refining Company.

 

Senior Trinidad personnel came to Port Credit including L.W. Kennedy (plant manager) and assistant C.T. Greene.

In 1947 a new steam plant was built containing two Wicks boilers and two Foster-Wheeler Boilers. This increased steam capacity to 85,000 lbs per hour at 150 lbs. pressure. New investment brought more growth and prosperity to Port Credit.

 

1955 - 1989 McColl-Frontenac Texaco Canada Ltd

 

In 1955 Regent Refining Company gave way to McColl-Frontenac, a Canadian subsidiary of the worldwide Texaco oil and gas business.

Texaco was a major distributor and refiner operating numerous refineries and operated a nationwide service station network. The Texaco expanded and operated its refining business in Port Credit for the next 30 years.

Vintage buildings from the Brick Works era remained on Texaco Site

After many years as a powerful presence in Port Credit, the flame down at the Lake took on a whole new meaning on October 2, 1978. 1000 residents had to be evacuated when an employee, Thomas Coxhead started a fire in two massive storage tanks containing home heating oil. The tanks, located north of Lakeshore Road, south of the tracks were connected via several pipes and valves. Coxhead opened the valves and ignited the flowing oil.

Firefighters from Texaco, Mississauga and from Toronto Airport were able to extinguish the fire after many hours but damage was estimated at 2.7 million dollars.

Coxhead was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

After the fire, refining operations ceased and never resumed. A fire like this threatened lives and livelihoods.

In 1985 the decommissioning began with removal of the storage tank area which included facilities both above and below the CNR Railway tracks.

Over the next 3 years the entire site was cleared as tanks and equipment were removed. Bricks and concrete, some from buildings going back to Brick Yards days ended up as landfill buried in what had been the ship lane on the southeast portion of the site. It was in this ship lane that the tugboat Ajax sank in 1937.

In 1989 Imperial Oil purchased all of the assets of Texaco Canada Limited. Since then, Imperial has provided continuous stewardship over the property and the legacy of 100 years of Port Credit industry.

 

Today

 

Today the land that once provided employment for many in the port credit community has been developed into residential and shopping centers, with a portion still untouched. For the last 30 years a section of land has not been developed due to environmental concerns with pollution, a topic that the business of Texaco dealt with throughout their operation.

The City of Mississauga raised discussion about development of the untouched section around 2016. The push for development became apparent by 2017 early 2018, as renderings began to surface. The 75 acres is being seen as an opportunity to provide more housing and commercial retail and office locations. Explained in an article from the Toronto Star the design includes 2,500 high rise and town house units to accommodate 5,000 residences. As well as providing 200,000 square feet of office and retail space. It promises great prosperity; though current residences are voicing concern with an increase in residences’ and the affect it will have on the ambiance of Port Credit.