June 22. 2024

The original town of Cooksville is basically history and exists in name only. It has been absorbed and overrun by the city of Mississauga. It started when Daniel Harris arrived in 1807 and the community was originally named Harrisville. It was a stagecoach stop on the Dundas highway which had been carved out of the forest based on a 1798 road survey. A store was located on the south east corner of the modern intersection of Dundas Street and Hurontario street as early as 1809. The town grew around the intersection and had a hotel as well as a blacksmith shop and a few dozen residents.

The map below was taken from the County Atlas of 1877 and shows how small Cooksville was at the time. The site of the store is shown circled in green on the south east corner of the main intersection in town.

The name of the town was changed to Cooksville in 1836 after prominent resident and landowner Jacob Cook. On May 26, 1852 a fire broke out in Belcher’s Blacksmith Shop. By the time it was finished, 35 houses and businesses, 16 barns and 4 stables had been destroyed. Including the original store on the corner.

The archive photo below was taken from InSauga News and shows the store as it appeared during its days as a gas station. The sign on the post reads “Keep Right” and “Cooks”.

The store was rebuilt of red brick and has survived as a business building ever since making it one of the oldest commercial buildings in Mississauga. Jacob Cook ran the store, and several other enterprises, until he passed away in 1873. His son, Miles Washington Cook, rented the store to George and John McClelland who operated it. After George married Jacob Cooks great niece Anna Langdon he bought the store and the couple lived in the apartment above it. In 1910 they sold it to Alfred Scott and it became Scott’s Grocery. It was Scott who had a gas pump installed in 1911 to service the growing need for petroleum for the automobile industry. This was the first gas pump in the area that has become Mississauga. This was just three years after the Model T was invented by Henry Ford.

The store was sold to William Copeland in 1912 and renamed Copeland’s General Store and he operated this business until 1922 when he sold the gas station to the British American Oil Company. The store was moved 80 feet to the east by sliding rails under it and pulling it with horses and the grocery business was continued in the new location. When William died in 1948 the business was taken over by his son Charles who ran it along with his sisters.

The oldest building in Cooksville continues its existence in use as a variety store which is appropriate considering the variety of commercial uses it has had over the years.

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Google Maps Link: Cooksville

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