Jack R. MacDonald Pedestrian Bridge

I've carried wagons, cars, movie crews, and generations of people across the Grand River. And I haven't always looked like this. A bridge has crossed the river at this location since the 1840s. For more than a century, this was an important route into Elora's commercial centre.

The crossing was rebuilt several times as transportation changed and older structures wore out. Stone piers were constructed in the nineteenth century, and in 1899, they supported a new steel truss bridge. For decades, people drove across me. Then, another crossing changed my role.

After the Metcalfe Street bridge opened in the 1950s, vehicle traffic gradually shifted away. By 1969, the Victoria Street Bridge, as I was then known, had closed to vehicles and I became a walking bridge. That transition says something interesting about infrastructure.

A route built for one purpose can continue to be valuable long after that original purpose changes. Once cars stopped using my crossing, I still offered something important: a direct connection between the south side of the river and the shops, businesses, and public spaces of downtown Elora on the north side.

My next chapter came from an unexpected source. In 1984, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer came to Elora to film the movie Mrs. Soffel. The production contributed $35,000 toward restoring the bridge so it could once again be used by pedestrians. For a time, wooden decking carried people across the old steel structure. But eventually, age caught up with me again. The bridge closed, and most of the old structure was removed in the mid-2000s. The stone piers remained standing in the river. For more than a decade, there was no crossing here.

Then, in 2016, a major gift from Jack R. MacDonald created an opportunity to reconnect the two sides. The Township received nearly $3.5 million from MacDonald for projects intended to have a lasting positive impact in the former Village of Elora. Council directed $1.8 million of that gift directly toward rebuilding my pedestrian bridge and improving the public realm along Mill Street West. The new bridge opened in 2019. And those old stone piers? They're still here. The bridge you're standing on today is a new piece of infrastructure supported by parts of crossings that came before it.

Take a moment to look in both directions. Behind you to the north is Mill Street West, with its shops, restaurants, historic buildings, and public spaces. Across the bridge to the south are neighbourhoods, parking areas, and other parts of the community. You’ll see a large new redevelopment in progress on the south side of the river associated with the mill redevelopment to the north. It will include a residential condominium building, hotel and conference centre, restaurants, spa, parking structure, and retail uses, all connected by pedestrian walkways within the development and alongside the river.

A short pedestrian connection changes how all of those places relate to one another. It can shorten a trip, create another way into downtown, make it easier to leave the car behind, bring people close to the river, and turn the crossing itself into a place where people stop, look around, and spend time. A bridge can do more than get you from one side to the other. Here, the journey across has become part of the experience of downtown Elora.

The river beneath us has shaped this community for far longer than any bridge has stood here. It influenced where people settled, where industries developed, and how Elora became connected to the wider region.

At our next stop, we'll look more closely at one of the buildings that depended on that relationship with the river, and at how the public spaces around Mill Street West have changed with it. When you're ready, make your way back toward Mill Street West and walk to the west towards the historic mill.