At the June 3, 2025 Board meeting, Halton District School Board Trustees selected Harvest Oak Public School as the name for the new Oakville elementary school, located at 1235 Wheat Boom Drive in Oakville.
The name Harvest Oak reflects Oakville’s agricultural history and the school’s location on Wheat Boom Drive. “Harvest” recognizes the Town’s 19th-century wheat production, which played a key role in its early economic development and growth, while “Oak” refers both to the strength and longevity of the oak tree and to the community of Oakville itself.
In the mid-19th century, Trafalgar Township—now part of modern-day Oakville and Halton Region—thrived during Ontario’s famed Wheat Boom. Settled by United Empire Loyalists and European immigrants, the township’s fertile soil and mild climate made it ideal for wheat farming. By the 1840s and 1850s, wheat was the dominant cash crop, with farms stretching from Lake Ontario inland across the township.
The arrival of improved roads and rail links, including proximity to shipping at Oakville Harbour, allowed farmers to export their wheat to markets in Britain and the U.S. This brought prosperity and led to the development of grist mills, general stores, and communities like Palermo, Munn’s Corners and Posts’ Corners.
However, by the 1870s, the Wheat Boom began to fade. Soil exhaustion, pests, and competition from Western Canadian grain fields shifted the local economy toward mixed farming and dairying. Still, the Wheat Boom era left a legacy of early settlement patterns, rural architecture, and the beginnings of Halton’s agricultural identity.
Today, remnants of this golden age survive in preserved farmsteads, archival records, and the work of local historical societies keeping Trafalgar Township’s rural past alive.