The Cataract Electric Company
Updated: Dec 4, 2022
An abandoned post indutrial site of a converted hydro mill that used to power an entire town. The ruins are Located in Caledon, Ontario Canada.
The ruins of the Cataract Electric Company (Figure 1) are located within the Forks of the Credit Provincial park, off of Charleston Road, in Caledon, Ontario, Canada. The park is open year round, and it covers 282 hectares on land. The park features small visions into the past with the building’s ruins along with the abandoned rail line from 1879 (Gravelle, 2009) (Figure 2); This area is a wonderland for urban explorers as it brings “public awareness of neglected industrial and infrastructural ruins” (Fassi, 2010). It also allows explorers to look around at the history without paying a guide nor acquiring special papers (RomanyWG & Potter, 2011).
In 1818 William Grant, acquired the Forks of the Credit land, and the original plan was for a salt mine, but as it did not pan out, they decided to build a sawmill (Dignard, 2019). The mill was later abandoned, and the town of Gleniffer was deserted for about 20 years. Then Richard Church came along, and he re-established it as Church's Falls in 1858. The name of the small town was later changed to Cataract when the railway arrived (Gravelle, 2009). The town of Cataract then had a sawmill, grist mill, a woollen factory, barrel-head manufacturing, a large general store and two hotels (Gravelle, 2009). Then in 1885, John Deagle bought the mills at the top of the falls, he built the five story building (Figure 3) and later converted it into an electrical generating station that powered the entire town of Cataract (Dignard, 2019) (Gravelle, 2009). Although in April of 1912, the dam was badly damaged by heavy rain and the melting ice burst within the Alton dam (Gravelle, 2010). Deagle decided to rebuild the dam, but he sold the operation three years later for $50,000; It then became ‘The Caledon Electric Company’ (Dignard, 2019). Ontario Hydro purchased the property in 1944, but due to low water levels they shut down in 1947 leaving the building to decay over time (Dignard, 2019).
The mill is heavily fenced off after a number of hikers lost their lives in the falls (Figure 4). Although that is ignored; in high school, this was a popular spot for teenagers to come and hangout as it provides picturesque aspects to the environment with the use of graffiti; This can be an become a risk of urban exploring because these ruins are meant to depict historical processes (Fassi, 2010). When visiting this post industrial area, explorers can see for themselves that “it becomes a reminder that commodities, despite all their tricks, are just stuff; little combinations of plastics or metal or paper” (Stallabrass, 2009). The graffiti decorated walls (Figure 1, 6, 7, 8, 9) and the reinforced riverbank (Figure 5) are concrete scars of an industrial landscape – now post industrial.
