On April 5, 1793, Augustus Jones, the deputy surveyor of Upper Canada, was in the process of surveying what was to become known as Governor’s Road. The work had been commissioned by John Graves Simcoe, the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, as part of his plan to build a military road connecting Dundas with London.
On that April morning, Jones was brought to a halt by a barrier. He and his crew stood on the eastern bank of the Grand River at a spot not far from today’s high-level bridge. Jones had to have a raft constructed to cross the surging waterway, swollen by the spring melt, and continue his surveying.
Before Paris officially became a village in 1850, crossing the Grand River while travelling along Dundas Street (also known as Governor’s Road) was no easy task unless you brought your own boat. One early method of crossing used a basket that was slung from a rope and drawn to the opposite bank.
Maps and drawings from the period suggest that wooden bridges were in place across the Grand River at Dundas Street and William Street by the early 1850s. Timber bridges have a short lifespan – usually no more than 20 years – so by the 1870s, after Paris had grown in population and become a town, the town council’s bridge committee was tasked with replacing both the William Street and Dundas Street bridges.
After some council wrangling, two identical wrought iron bridges were built, one at Dundas Street and one at William Street. Each bridge comprised three 120-foot spans supported by stone abutments, and work was completed in late fall of 1877.
The original Dundas Street bridges – timber and later wrought iron – were meant to carry pedestrians and horse-drawn wagons and carriages. The coming of automobile and truck traffic in the 1920s made the 1877 Dundas Street bridge obsolete. A high-level bridge to carry cars and trucks over the Grand River was built in 1931 and later replaced with an even larger high-level bridge in 1968.
Despite minimal maintenance, the 1877 wrought-iron bridge continued to deteriorate until it was closed to pedestrian traffic in 1981. The bridge was demolished, and its stone piers in the river were removed in late 1987. Only vestiges of the east bank abutments remain.