Formed by local businessmen in 1831, the Niagara Harbour and Dock Company created a shipping basin here on the Niagara River by hiring hundreds of labourers to excavate a riverside marsh. By the late 1830s, the company employed close to 400 workers and was operating one of the busiest ports and shipyards in Upper Canada. The local economy boomed as the business prospered, then lapsed into recession after financial problems crippled the company in the late 1840s. The company's industrial complex was used to build railway cars and steamboats in the 1850s and 1860s. This building, the Niagara Harbour and Dock Company office between 1835 and 1853, was restored in 1998.