Stagecoach drivers and farmers in the 19th century would have been familiar with this kind of road marker fashioned after the British tradition along both the Kingston Road and Dundas Street (The Governor's Road). This one was chiseled from the limestone that predominates in eastern Ontario. However, many of the milestones were carved cedar posts. No doubt a few of the old stone markers are buried deep along the roadside on parts of the the old Highway 2 and elsewhere on the parts of the bypassed Kingston Road alignment. The cedar posts were reclaimed by nature.
As horseless carriages became more popular and reliable in the first decade of the 20th century, Ontario drivers contually pushed the envelope and became lost in the process. Little signing existed on the roads and few maps existed. The Ontario Motor League (Now the CAA) leapt into the breach and set up an organized system of finger board signs to set motorists on the right course. The OML also published an "Official Automobile Road Guide" with detailed written directions showing drivers and their navigators how to get from A to B and back again. Today, the new iteration of the OML, the CAA is still lobbying on behalf of motorists.
The development of highway and municipal road signs have come a long way since 1927 when The Ontario Department of Public Highways published the first sign standards. Those of us of a certain age, for example, remember the stop signs that read from the top "Through - Stop - Highway" against a white background. As a teen-age driver in the 1950s I always found this conglomeration of words somewhat strange. In 1955 Ontario adopted a more modern standard for signing using colours and shapes, like the octagonal red stop sign. The signing in Ontario today is an outgrowth of ideas from both Europe and North America adopted over the past four decades.
Email John Shragge for historical roads: shragge@pathcom.com
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