Columbus Community Centre

Built in 1859, the Columbus Community Centre was originally the East Whitby Township Hall. It was built by R.T. Manual, who was  awarded the contract as his tender was the lowest submitted to council.  The building was was partitioned into two rooms and described as being “56 x 36 feet with a 16 foot ceiling, brick walls one and a half inch thick on a stone foundation.” The tower contains a builder’s half moon date stone, located in the middle, which reads “Townhall AD 1859.”

In 1967, to celebrate Canada’s centennial, the Township of East Whitby undertook a project to renovate and restore the Town Hall as a Community Centre. This project was carried out in cooperation with the Government of Canada and that of the Province of Ontario. The southern addition to the building was constructed at this time.

The Columbus Community Centre was designated as a property of cultural heritage value or interest in 2011. Within the designation, the City of Oshawa noted that the “cultural heritage value of this property lies in it containing the former town hall of a form and scale that is representative of town halls constructed in the 19th century in many municipalities in Ontario and that served the residents of the Township of East Whitby in that capacity until 1973 when the Township was amalgamated with the City of Oshawa.”

With information from:

Lindsay, Ford.  Then & Now: First Columbus Hall Built Under Protest. Oshawa Times  p.1 (photocopy)

Melissa Cole, Columbus Community Centre Heritage Research Report, 2006.

Elsie M. Cleverson, An East Whitby Mosaic, 1967

https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/oha/details/file?id=1024