Fort Erie, Ontario

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
Location of Fort Erie in the Niagara Region
Location of Fort Erie in the Niagara Region

Fort Erie (2006 population 29,925) is a town on the Niagara River in the Niagara Region, Ontario, Canada. It is located directly across the river from Buffalo, New York.

Modern settlement of the area was established when a British military fort, Fort Erie, was constructed in 1764. During the American Revolution it was used as a supply depot for British troops. When the War of 1812 started, the troops stationed at Fort Erie were caught off guard due to the fort being in the middle of rebuilding. The Americans held it for a time, fending off two British attacks. Later they destroyed Fort Erie and returned to Buffalo in the winter of 1814. The ruins remained until they were rebuilt through a depression era "work program" project, as a tourist attraction in 1939.

The current "Dolls House Museum", located on the Niagara River near downtown Fort Erie (Bridgeburg Station), was a supposed hiding place on the Underground Railroad for fugitive slaves in the 1800s.

On August 7, 1927 the Peace Bridge was opened between the Town of Fort Erie and the City of Buffalo, New York.

The town's beaches on Lake Erie (most notably Crystal Beach and Bay Beach), are considered the best in the area and draw many weekend recreationists from the Toronto and Buffalo areas. While summers are enjoyable, winters can occasionally be fierce, with many snow storms, whiteouts and winds whipping off Lake Erie.

Fort Erie Race Track has hosted live thoroughbred racing since 1897. Widely regarded as one of North America's most picturesque tracks, it has been home to the second jewel in Canada's Triple Crown of Racing since 1959.

Fort Erie is one of the fastest growing communities in Niagara, and has experienced a high level of residential and commercial development in the past few years. Garrison Road (Provincial Highway #3) is the town's major "tourist commercial" corridor, stretching for nearly 5 kilometers east to west through Greater Fort Erie. Fort Erie is also home to a number of other commercial core areas (Bridgeburg, Ridgeway, Stevensville and Crystal Beach) as a result of the 1970 amalgamation of these former municipalities with Fort Erie proper.

Contents

Public transit is provided by Fort Erie Transit, which operates 2 buses in the town.

Fort Erie has been the Niagara-bound terminus of the Queen Elizabeth Way since the 1950s. Highway 3 cuts through the town east to west, and is a regional road between Rosehill Road and Central Avenue. Highway 3C (today's Dominion Road) existed until 1970, when it was downloaded to the newly-formed Regional Municipality of Niagara to become Niagara Road 1.

The recently released 2006 Census of Canada indicates a current population of 29,925 for Fort Erie. This is a 6.3% increase over the last Census (2001), and makes Fort Erie the fastest growing municipality in the St. Catharines-Niagara CMA (Census Metropolitan Area), and the third fastest growing municipality in the Region of Niagara.

According to the 2001 census, the population is 28,143, broken down as follows: 92.8% White, 3.2% Aboriginal, 1.4% Chinese, 0.9% Black, and a very small percentage of Asian, Arab, and Hispanic populations.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.