On January 1st, 2024, our city turns 50! We’ve partnered with Heritage Mississauga to bring you 50 facts about Mississauga to celebrate the city’s “golden” birthday.

The City of Mississauga was born on January 1, 1974 through the amalgamation of the Town of Mississauga, the Town of Port Credit and the Town of Streetsville.

The Town of Mississauga came to be in 1968 through the formal amalgamation of the former Toronto Township (Township of Toronto) into the new town.

IMage via Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation

The City of Mississauga is located on the traditional and treaty lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.

The City of Mississauga is connected geographically to five treaties and agreements signed between the Indigenous Mississaugas and The Crown: Provisional Agreement 13-A (1805), Treaty 14 (1806), Treaty 19 (1818), and Treaties 22 & 23 (1820).

Residents of Toronto Township chose the new name for the Town of Mississauga with a public vote held in 1967 through the local newspaper, already called The Mississauga News.

The Mississauga News, under the direction of founder and publisher Kenneth Armstrong, took its name in 1963.

The City of Mississauga today has over 500 parks.

Did you know that Mississauga has been home to many different newspapers over time other than The Mississauga News? These include The Bulletin / Streetsville Semi-Annual Register (1843-1846), The Weekly Review (1846), Streetsville Review (1847-1866, 1887-1888), The Review-Herald (1889-1899), The Review / Streetsville Review (1899-1968), The Mississauga Review (1968-1971), The Review (1971-1984), Port Credit News (1927-1937), Port Credit Weekly (1938-1959), The Weekly (1959-1967), South Peel Weekly (1968-1969), Mississauga Times (1969-1980), The Malton Times (c1944), The Malton Pilot (1969-1977), The Malton Courier (c1973), Malton Mercury (1977-c1978), Malton Messenger (1979-c1980), and the Streetsville Booster / The Booster (1964-2014).

Montreal House Streetsville, c1940 - image via heritage mississauga

The oldest commercial building still standing in Mississauga is the “Montreal House” located at 210 Queen Street South in Streetsville, which was built between 1821 and 1825.

The atomic symbol in the City of Mississauga’s Coat-of-Arms is in reference to the Sheridan Park Industrial Research Community (Sheridan Research Park), which opened in 1964 and was Canada's first fully-planned research community.

ERINDALE HYDRO - DAM CONSTRUCTION, 1909 - Image via heritage mississauga

Erindale Park was once the site of a hydroelectric dam which was built 1909 and dismantled by 1922. Its presence created “Lake Erindale”. Erindale Park, which features the remains of the hydro dam, is Mississauga’s largest park.

One of Mississauga’s renowned Museum sites is called Benares Historic House and the name Benares comes from the city of Benares in northern India. The name was given to the house by Captain James Harris and his family who lived there during the 19th Century. Captain Harris was a captain in the 24th Regiment of the British Army and was stationed in India.

Colonel Harland Sanders, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, had a house on Melton Drive in Mississauga for 25 years before he died in 1980. He came to Canada in 1964.

Tesla’s largest fast charging site in Ontario is in Mississauga’s Applewood Plaza.

Canada's largest airport, Lester B. Pearson International Airport, is in Mississauga.

Over 20% of Fortune 500 companies have a presence in Mississauga.

The intersection of Duke of York Boulevard and Square One Drive was Mississauga's first roundabout. The traffic circle in The Credit Woodlands is older, but it is not a true roundabout.

The Absolute Towers, also known as the “Marilyn Monroe” towers were designed and built with a 209-degree twist.

Tomken Road (formerly 2nd Line East) was renamed in 1958 for resident, veteran and respected politician Thomas Laird Kennedy.

Thomas Laird Kennedy - image via heritage mississauga

Aquitaine Avenue was named for the area of Aquitaine in southern France and the Pyrenees mountains along the border with Spain.

Lakeview has a breakwater constructed from the scuttled hulls of three former Great Lakes barges. The barges are, north to south in the breakwater, the Bryn Mawr, the John Fritz and the John R. Roeblin.

Dairy Cream on Lakeshore Road is Mississauga's oldest still-operating restaurant, first opening in 1958.

Mississauga has two craft breweries: Old Credit Brewing Company and Stonehooker Brewing Company, both in the southern part of the city.

Mississauga has approximately 500 kilometres of multi-use trails, park paths, bicycle lanes and signed bike routes.

Neil Pasricha, New York Times bestselling author of 10 books and journals which have sold over 2,000,000 copies and spent over 200 weeks on bestseller lists mentions Kate's Town Talk Bakery in his “Book of Awesome”.

LOOKING NORTHWEST FROM SQUARE ONE, 1973, COURTESY OF RON DUQUETTE

Square One, named by Mississauga's Ron Duquette, blended the simple shape of the mall (the original four anchor stores being Woolco, Simpson-Sears, The Bay and Dominion) and it being poised to be the largest mall in the country, number "one” if you will. The working reference from S.B. McLaughlin & Associates at the time was if you are going to build a city from scratch, you are going to start at square one.

Ontario’s first female Fire Chief is Mississauga’s current Fire Chief/Director Emergency Management, Deryn Rizzi.

Mississauga has two Queen streets – one in Port Credit and one in Streetsville – and both predate the city. A third Queen Street in Cooksville was renamed McGill Street in 1975.

Council Chambers at the Mississauga Civic Centre showcases a 30-metre diameter domed ceiling with a mural designed by Canadian artist Sharon McCann. Completed in 1986 after six weeks of work, it illustrates the constellations combined with images of the Ojibwa legend of the Great Bear and the Seven Hunters and is named Spring Sky Mural.

The first of the famous Osmow's Shawarma restaurants was, and still is, in Streetsville. Bonus fact; it used to be called Polar Submarines.

The Streetsville Founders' Bread & Honey Festival is the largest and longest running festival in Mississauga - the festival turned 50 in 2023.

World-famous recording studio, Metalworks, is at Mavis and Burnhamthorpe. The list of world-famous artists who have recorded there is massive.

Did you know that Mississauga has an official song? “The Mississauga Song” was released by Tommy Hunter in 1974.

Lake Wabakane was named after Chief Wabukanyne (also spelt Wabukayn), who was a Mississauga (Ojibwa) Chief of the Eagle Clan at the Credit River who signed Treaty 13 and Provisional Agreement 13-A in 1805. Wabukayn translates as “White Snow”.

Sheridan was almost chosen as the name for Mississauga. In fact, it was the favourite among council, but the name Mississauga was the clear favourite among residents.

Mississauga was originally named Toronto Township in 1806, a full 28 years before the Town of York was incorporated as the City of Toronto in 1834.

The City of Mississauga crest features the flight wings for Mississauga's aviation industry, a water wheel for the former Town of Streetsville, a lighthouse for the former town of Port Credit, and a stalk of wheat for the agricultural roots, among other symbolic motifs.

The Mississauga Civic Centre was designed by architects Edward Jones and Michael Kirkland, who took inspiration from local farms around Mississauga to create a postmodern farmhouse design, which was truly a marvel for its time. Their design was chosen from 246 design entries in 1982.

Mazo de la Roche - image via heritage mississauga

While living in Clarkson in 1927, Mazo de la Roche wrote her award-winning book, ‘Jalna’, the first of sixteen in her best-selling series about the fictional ‘Whiteoaks’ family. The series became world-renowned, selling over 12 million copies and being translated into 92 different languages. Mississauga’s Benares House is believed to be the inspiration for ‘Jalna’, as Mazo was a close friend of the Harris family, who lived at Benares, and owned a small house nearby that she named ‘Trail Cottage’.

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, sister of Russia’s last Tsar Nicholas II, lived in Cooksville. She and her husband fled Russia in 1917, eventually settling into obscurity in Canada. They lived along Camilla Road in Mississauga.

The City of Mississauga has had four Mayors: Martin Dobkin (1974-1976), Rob Searle (1976-1978), Hazel McCallion (1978-2014) and Bonnie Crombie (2014- January, 2024 when she’ll step down and a Mississauga by-election will take place.)

Igor Gouzenko, commonly remembered as the man who started the Cold War, lived secretly in Mississauga. He was born in Russia in 1919 and worked in military intelligence at the Russian Embassy in Ottawa. On September 5, 1945, Gouzenko defected, hiding under his shirt 109 documents exposing Soviet operations in Canada, the United States, and Great Britain. Igor and his entire family were put under witness protection by the RCMP, given the name “Krysac” and new identities as Czechoslovakian immigrants living in Mississauga.

Mississauga is an Ojibwa word that means “River of the North of Many Mouths”, or “Many River Mouths”.

Chief Kahkewāquonāby, also known as Reverend Peter Jones (1802-1856), was Chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit and led his people to relocate to the “New Credit” reserve near Brantford in 1846-47.

Chief Kahkewāquonāby (Reverend Peter Jones), was the first Canadian Indigenous person to be photographed.

Many of our earliest settlers were United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution. Many of their names are memorialized in street and place names today including Bradley, Jarvis, Thompson, and Merigold.

The 1979 Mississauga Train Derailment resulted in the largest peacetime evacuation in North American history, until Hurricane Katrina.

Other than English and French, did you know that the most common languages spoken in Mississauga include the Chinese languages (5.5%), Urdu (4.9%) and Polish (4.1%) as of 2016.