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We are a self-directed team of interested citizens or ex-citizens of the Town of Greenfield Park who are interested in preserving the history of the Town. We intend to legitimately locate, validate, and catalogue photographs, artifacts, and stories of the past and incorporate them into a reference collection. This collection or library will be maintained by the Society and the Town, and be made available for interested persons or groups, for the benefit of all citizens.
Nous sommes une équipe autonome réunissant des citoyens et ex-citoyens de la Ville de Greenfield Park qui désirent conserver l’historique de la Ville. Le groupe a l’intention de localiser, valider, cataloguer les photographies, les faits d’archives et les histoires, s’assurant de leur légitimé, et de les incorporer à l’intérieur d’un recueil de références. Cette collection ou bibliothèque sera conservée par une Société et les autorités de la Ville et pourra être disponible aux personnes ou groupes intéressés et pour le bénéfice de tous les citoyens.
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Greenfield Park, Quebec, Canada is located opposite the island of Montréal on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River adjacent to the cities of St. Lambert, St.Hubert, LeMoyne and Brossard.
The site of Greenfield Park was originally part of the Seigneury of Longueuil. This area remainedprimarily agricultural until the mid 19th century, when railway development began to encourage growth of the towns and villages around the City of Montréal.
In 1854 the Grand Trunk Railway began construction of the Victoria Bridge linking Montréal with the south shore. The bridge, upon completion in 1859, was the longest railway bridge in the world. St. Lambert and other communities began to grow, in effect, as suburbs of Montréal. The rapid growth of St. Lambert eventually spilled over into neighbouring agricultural areas, where the original farmers were encouraged by developers to subdivide their land. In 1907 residential lots began to be sold in what would become the Town of Greenfield Park. In 1911, the population had grown to 52 families, enough to justify incorporation as a separate town, and on March 24th received its charter from the provincial government. The name of the community was chosen to describe the fields and woods which still dominated the area.
In 1909, the Montreal and Southern Counties Railway began service from Montreal across the Victoria bridge to the South Shore. Although it was the intention to extend this electric railway to Sherbrooke, Quebec in the Eastern Townships, the tracks only ever made it to Granby.
In 1912 the town council requested and received assurance that the proposed route would be altered to pass through the community. The eventual construction of this span through the heart of the town was completed in 1913. For 7 cents, residents were then able to reach Montreal in about twenty minutes. This encouraged working class families to leave the congestion and pollution of Montréal's industrial suburbs, like Pointe St. Charles, for the semi-rural setting of Greenfield Park.
In the period after 1913, the town added wooden sidewalks, electricity, water lines, and a sewage system. Surface drainage was by natural creeks and man made ditches which flooded each spring. The roads were muddy and primitive during the 1920s until the 1930s when the town began putting down crushed bricks to give the roads a better surface.
As late as 1939, the population of Greenfield Park was just over 1700 people. During World War II the municipality contributed per capita, the greatest proportion of recruits to the military of any other community in Canada, and the town received a commendation attesting to this fact, from the Minister of National Defence.
By 1961 the population had reached 7 807 of which 5 060 traced their ancestry to the British Isles (1961c.). In the early 1960s the town increased its area by 40% when the council purchased land from neighbouring St. Hubert. This acquisition increased commercialization of the South Shore's main traffic artery, Taschereau Boulevard which divides the town into 2 parts. However it encouraged more people to settle in this community.
Although originally settled mainly by British immigrants, francophones now constitute the majority of the population. Greenfield Park which remains today a flourishing multi-cultural town with many churches and schools which include Centennial Regional High School, with the largest english high school population in Québec.
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