Port Colborne is a city in Ontario, Canada that is located on Lake Erie, at the southern end of the Welland Canal, in the Niagara Region of Southern Ontario. The original settlement, known as Gravelly Bay, dates from 1832 and was renamed after Sir John Colborne, a British war hero and the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada at the time of the opening of the (new) southern terminus of the First Welland Canal in 1833. The city's population in 2021 was 20,033. History In pre-colonial times, Indigenous people of the Onguiaahra (Neutral Iroquois) lived in the area, due in part to the ready availability of flint and chert from outcroppings on the Onondaga Escarpment. This advantage was diminished by the introduction of firearms by European traders, and they were driven out by the Six Nations of the Iroquois around 1650 as part of the Beaver Wars. Originally called Gravelly Bay, after the shallow, bedrock-floored bay upon which it sits, today's City of Port Colborne traces its roots back to the United Empire Loyalist settlements that grew up in the area following the American Revolution. Growth became focused around the southern terminus of the Welland Canal after it reached Lake Erie in 1833. The town was the location of the Port Colborne explosion, a grain elevator explosion in 1919 that killed 10 and injured 16. As the population rose, Welland County was formed in 1845 from Lincoln County and Port Colborne was incorporated as a village in 1870, became a town in 1918, merged with the neighbouring Village of Humberstone in 1952, and was re-incorporated as a city in 1966. In 1970, Niagara Region municipal restructuring added Humberstone Township, further expanding the city. In the year 1888, American tourists from the Southern states began building vacation homes on the lakeshore of the Western edge of the town. By 1890, an entire gated community of vacationers from the US South called Port Colborne their home during the summer months, naming the community The Humberstone Club. Over 30 grand summer homes, along with a variety of clubhouses and service buildings, were built along the lake in the following years, many of which still stand today on historic Tennessee Avenue. The southern architecture and style of these buildings would influence the design and construction of other historic buildings in the area. During the American Civil War, Varina Davis, wife of Confederacy President Jefferson Davis,