Doors Open Oshawa

For over 60 years, the Oshawa Museum has celebrated Oshawa's history. Enjoy a virtual introduction to the museum in Bringing Objects to Life (2015).

Discover the Museum From Home: Inside the Henry House Study and find out what's behind closed doors in the Behind the Scenes Tour of the 1840 s home.

Travel back even further in time to explore A Carrying Place: Oshawa’s Indigenous Story. 

Or share your memories after viewing the virtual exhibit of Lakeview Park, Celebrating 100. 

Established in 1963 and housed in a 1920 s car dealership, this museum showcases the development of the automobile, with vehicles and artifacts from 1903 to 1999. Our Oshawa is Automotive Heritage provides a brief introduction while this Driving.ca video is more detailed. New for 2020 is Oshawa’s Automotive Community exhibit highlighting the origins, growth, and community impact of Canada’s largest automotive assembly plant.  Did you or a family member work at the General Motors Oshawa Assembly Plant? Please share your automotive memories.  

In the 1920 s, H.B. and L.A. Dunington-Grubb, founders of Sheridan Gardens, created spectacular outdoor garden rooms. They include the distinct Sunken and Italian Gardens as well as the Sundial Garden and the Summer House. In 1935-36, John Lyle created the Formal Garden, with its terrace, fountains and pavilion in the Art Deco style. 

Ken Shaw narrates Khaki at Parkwood: Whiskey, Espionage and the Maple Leaf a dramatization at Parkwood that speaks to the wartime connection to Camp X, another digital Doors Open Oshawa site.

Located on the historical south field of the Oshawa Executive Airport, this museum is home to Canada's largest collection of operational, historical military vehicles. Take a virtual tour and see artifacts from Durham Region's Ontario Regiment from 1866 to the present. Explore Behind the Scenes videos of the Military Vehicle Conservation Centre (over 80 vehicles on display), the Tank Arena or the Tank Trek Set Up. Looking for more tanks? Check out the collection.

Take a moment to watch the award winning Convoy to Remembrance, a documentary about the museum’s participation in Remembrance Day celebrations.

Many famous people from Oshawa's and Canada's past are interred in Oshawa Union Cemetery, formerly “Thornton's Burying Ground”. Oshawa Museum’s podcast highlights the history of the cemetery. Today, the site covers 32 acres and includes private mausoleums and a Gothic-revival chapel. The mausoleum was built in 1924 and features an ornate marble interior and hand-painted stained-glass windows. The on-line interactive map is a new, searchable resource of burials. The gravestones are of particular interest; explore the iconography or the rare White Bronze markers. Listen to a video podcast about Oshawa in the 1860’s and the story of George Prentice and the Fenian Raids.

Established in 2014, All or Nothing Brewhouse produces a wide variety of craft beer on site in the historic Ritson Road Beer Store that was built in the 1950's. During COVID-19 the brewery has been busy producing ethanol for hand sanitizer for the residents of the Durham Region. The retail and on-line beer store are also open. Check out the web site for all the details and be sure to read Our Story.  Take a virtual tour around the brewhouse to see the larger than life production equipment or watch a beer production video from barley to beer can.

Visit Digital Doors Open RMG and take a 360⁰ trip through our Permanent Collection exhibition Journeys and discover the local artist Ron Eccles’ exhibition Primary Structures. Join Eccles and curator Sonya Jones as they discuss and reflect on time, geography, and light and how they manifest in Eccles’ geometric and structured abstract paintings.

History of RMG:

The RMG was founded in 1967 after Oshawa designer William Caldwell organized an exhibition of work by local artists at a commercial space on Simcoe Street. Seeing the need for a more permanent home for the arts, Ewart McLaughlin and his wife Margaret (painter Alexandra Luke) offered major financial support and works from their own private collection toward the establishment of an expanded public art gallery for the City of Oshawa.

The gallery was incorporated with name of Robert, founder of The McLaughlin Carriage Company, grandfather of Ewart, and father of Col. R.S. (Sam) McLaughlin (General Motors of Canada). Isabel McLaughlin, an important modernist painter and cousin of Ewart, also became a life-long patron of the gallery.  A founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters, she provided ongoing generous financial support as well as significant gifts of over 100 works of important Canadian and international works.

The original gallery was built in 1969 on its present location under the guidance of architect Hugh Allward of Allward & Gouinlock. It was a square, stone, modernist structure allowing for 6000 feet of exhibition space, offices and vault storage. In 1987, a $5.4 million dollar expansion was commissioned and Arthur Erickson, renowned for his love of natural light and materials, was secured to add 36,000 square feet to meet the growing needs of the RMG and the community. Erickson built his design around the existing structure, incorporating the original stone façade into the dramatic lobby design which is flooded with natural light, skylights and soaring 35 foot ceilings.

Built in 1867, in the Gothic Revival style, Simcoe Street United Church is Oshawa's oldest church. It’s no wonder it has ghost stories to tell.  Lancet-arched openings and a polygonal spire with pinnacles and dormers embellish the exterior. A pressed-tin ceiling, 11-metre (36-feet) high ornamental timber arches and a Casavant organ dominate the interior. Watch a quick introduction to this Heritage Designated building with history buff Robert Bell.

This year the church was turned over to The Back Door Mission for the Relief of Poverty & Mission United so that those in need due to COVID -19 could be helped. 

1919 was a horrible year for the congregation (established 1817, the oldest in Oshawa) mourning the losses of the First World War, the Spanish Flu and then a major fire. One hundred years later and repairs are again urgently needed due to the passage of time. Visit the website for updates on the repairs as well as on-line church services.

The Regent Theatre’s façade, built in 1919 for Famous Players theatres, has Georgian architectural lines. One of the town’s few remaining examples of this classically inspired style, the building reopened in 2010 as a lecture theatre for Ontario Tech University, as well as for community and cultural events.  Listen to an Oshawa Museum podcast on this designated building’s fascinating history or take a virtual tour.

In 1927 R.S. McLaughlin, President of General Motors Canada, established the lands as Parkwood Stables and sold it in 1950 to E.P. Taylor who bred championship horses at Windfields Farm. Ontario Tech University now owns the land. The Windfields Farm Legacy aims to preserve and educate by telling the story of E.P. Taylor, Northern Dancer, Northern Dancer Cemetery, Trillium Cemetery and the Windfields Stone House.

Northern Dancer, one of the most recognized names in horse racing to this day, was a Windfields Farm born, Canadian-bred thoroughbred racehorse who won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes, among other races, and became the most successful sire of the 20^th century.  He is the only equine to be inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.  Watch a short video on the 30^th anniversary of Northern Dancer’s death.

Forming part of Oshawa’s Civic Centre, the Library was a gift of Col. R.S. McLaughlin in 1954. Architect Arthur Eadie was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright in his design of the McLaughlin Public Library, now our central branch. The inside vestibule includes walls of Italian marble and a circular staircase, above which is a gold inscription to the generous donor. Check out our video on the History of Library Service in Oshawa

In the Local History Room we maintain a growing collection of materials relating to historical events, places and people.  We have made some of these materials available online at the Internet Archive and in our Heritage Images collection.  We regularly host programs on local history topics, many of which have been recorded and can viewed on our Youtube channel

Note: The Library is now open to the public, but the Local History Room remains closed.