Ontario Plaques
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History, where it happened

Ontario historicalplaques: provincialplaques, county by county.

Ontario historical plaques stand at the roadside, outside churches and in town parks. This is what 1,564 of them say, and where to find them.

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A province of stories. Waiting to be found.

Preston Rivulettes Women's Hockey Team Recorded on site Preston Rivulettes Women's Hockey Team — Waterloo · Photos by Alan L Brown - Posted July 2018
Start with a place. Follow a story.

01 / In focus

One plaque, and its plaque text.

Paris Plains Church 1845 Photos by Alan L Brown - Posted June, 2004

Brant County

Paris Plains Church 1845

1845

Built by the free labour of its own congregation, from stones gathered in the fields around it. The plaque text on every page here is transcribed from the bronze itself — not summarised, not modernised. Most of these are provincial plaques, erected by the Ontario Heritage Trust and its predecessors; provincial plaques are rarely longer than a hundred words, and that compression is most of what makes them worth reading.

There are more historical plaques in Ontario than any one trip can reach; this one has stood outside Paris since 1845.

Read the plaque
N 43 14.262 W 80 22.900 June 2004

02 / Find your place

Ontario historical plaques by county.

All 52 counties, districts and cities

A historical plaque in Niagara

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Niagara

118 plaques recorded

03 / Follow your curiosity

Provincial plaques, and more than one way in.

People & communities — an Ontario historical plaque People & communities Buildings & places — an Ontario historical plaque Buildings & places Work & industry — an Ontario historical plaque Work & industry

04 / The collection

Find a story to take with you.

Every one of the historical plaques in Ontario recorded here — 1,564 in all: 1,539 with the full plaque text, 1,417 with photographs taken on site.

1,564 plaques

Every place has a past

One camera.
A province
of stories.

Ontario plaque locations, as recorded

The photographs were taken on site between 2004 and 2018, county by county, and each one is credited on its own page. Most of the markers are provincial plaques of the Ontario Heritage Trust; the federal ones were erected by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. Ontario plaque locations here describe what was found on the ground rather than what a register lists — coordinates and a location map where the record carries them.

Markers move when a road is widened, and a few now stand some distance from what they commemorate, so Ontario plaque locations are dated as well as described. Ontario historical plaques outlive the buildings they mark more often than not.

Browse by county

With thanks

Contributors to the collection.

A number of the plaque texts for federal markers were copied, with permission, from Wayne Cook's website. Toronto's plaques were for some years kept on a separate site, torontoplaques.com. The 142 people and organisations below contributed plaque photographs to this collection.

Good to know

Before
you explore.

Which plaques are included?

The Ontario historical plaques recorded here are the provincial markers erected by the Ontario Heritage Trust and its predecessors, together with municipal, regional and federal markers noted on the same trips. 1,539 of the 1,564 entries carry the full plaque text, and the rest are recorded by name, place and photograph.

Are the plaque texts exact?

They are transcribed from the plaque as it stood, including spellings and dates that later scholarship has questioned. Where a visitor supplied a correction it appears in the notes below the transcription rather than replacing it.

Can I save a plaque for later?

Use the bookmark on any record. The list stays in this browser; no account, and nothing leaves the device.

Are the photographs from the site itself?

Yes. Every image is a photograph of the physical marker, taken on location, with the photographer credited on the record. None of them is generated.