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AT THE FORKS OF THE GRAND est on the bonds. In 1876 the Paris Council sold the road to the County Council for $8000ooo, on condition that no tolls should ever be collected. The gates were removed, and signs were erected to proclaim that the highway was an open road. The influence of the Governor's Road had become negligible. The Nith and the Grand have had a very great influence upon Paris. Without the power developed by one or other of these rivers, there would have been no way of grinding either gypsum or the grain of the pioneer; or of sawing the logs that were floated down on the spring floods; or of driving the simple machinery of the first industries. And without this power, larger industries in later years would not have been established here. There is no exaggeration in saying that without the rivers, Paris would have developed no faster or further than St. Geofge or Princeton. Without the rivers, there would probably be no Paris. In 1838 the Nith, through Capron's dam and races, was supplying power to seven industries. Eleven years later, in i849, it was supply- ing 87 horse-power to the following industries: Grist and Plaster Mill of Norman Hamilton, on Broadway S tre e t .. ... ....... ..... ................................................................ .. . . 25 h .p . Grist Mill of A. & T. Kerr, on Grand River Street .............25 h.p. Textile Mill of Daniel Totten on Grand River Street ..........17 h.p. Tannery of Hugh Finlayson, James Montgomery and George McVicar on corner of Mechanic and Grand River ............... 6 h.p. Iron Foundry of Daniel Church on Broadway Street .............5 h.p. Foundry and Machine Shop of Wm. & Samuel Allehin ..........3 h.p. M achine shop of Samuel Heath ..................................................3 h.p. Wagon Shop of Charles Mitchell ................................................3 h.p. Up to 1854, no attempt had been made within the boundaries of Paris to harness the Grand. But in that year, the present Willow- Street race was dug. Concerning this new source of power, Hiram Capron wrote in 1I857: In 1854 the land through which this race is cut . . . was purchased from Mr. Hiram Capron by Mr. A. Kerr, of Hamilton, and Mr. C. Whitlaw, and in the same year the race was cut, the dam and guard locks built, and the sales of water power effected. The works were carried forward with the utmost energy, and they have been finished in a style and with a regard to the completeness, effi- eieney and permanency more characteristic of public works than of private enterprise . . . In two years there have grown up upon this race (capable of producing 800 horsepower) a plaster mill, a flouring mill, an iron foundry, a machine shop, a blacksmith shop, and a Carpenters' machine shop. This concentration of industry along the races affected the develop- ment of the community by encouraging the establishment of stores, shops, taverns, and homes in the Lower Town, rather than in the Upper. The trend was apparent even by 1849, when the "Canada Directory" listed 47 businesses of various kinds in the Lower Town 88