MADE IN HAMILTON
20TH CENTURY
INDUSTRIAL TRAIL

SITE 39
HAMILTON WHEEL WORKS, 1879

Another industry to locate on the edge of the 19th century city was the Hamilton Wheel Works of F.W. Hore and Son. Young Francis Hore began his career in the 1850s and 1860s by running a series of saw mills west of the city. In 1872, he began to make hubs and spokes. His country factory burned down in 1879. Hore then moved to this site next to the railway tracks by the foot of Elgin Street near Land's Inlet, just north of the present day Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre.

Inside this new factory, close to 50 workers produced all kinds of carriage, wagon and sleigh woodwork. By 1894, Hore's plant had become "the largest works of its kind in Canada". After Hore retired in 1892, his sons and grandsons carried on the business until the company closed in 1927.

This was one of a number of Hamilton plants that moved to cheap vacant land at the eastern limits of the city in the late 1800s.

One of Hore's saw mills was located in Crooks' Hollow above Dundas. It was powered by water from the Spencer Creek. Some of the region's first industries were located in the Dundas highlands.