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When Ontario became a province in 1867, the Dominion Police Force was the law-enforcement body in Eastern and Central Canada. In the west, the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) served. In 1920, these two policing bodies joined together to become the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that we still know today. As the Canadian population expanded, so did policing. In 1877, Parliament passed The Constables Act. This legislation created provincial delegates within the RCMP to better serve each province.³
In 1909, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) was formed and became the official law-enforcement body in Ontario. Originally, the Dominion Police and the NWMP (eventually the RCMP) had the authority to enforce laws concerning liquor trafficking, Indigenous peoples, and frontier policing in the west. Gradually, the police were given more responsibilities by the federal and provincial governments. In the 1920s, the OPP was assigned to security details for events and important diplomatic visitors. In 1939, the force was put in charge of protection orders for hydroelectric plants and given the authority to oversee provincial protection volunteer groups. In the mid-1950s, provincial police were given the power to enforce traffic laws and give out tickets for violations.⁴
The Ontario Police College itself was the idea of Conservative Party politician Ron McNeil, who served as a warden of Elgin County in the 1950s. McNeil was aware of the former RCAF training base, which was then being used as a storage space for the canning and tobacco industries in Aylmer and the surrounding area. McNeil realized that the space would be ideal for a training college for the Ontario Police. In 1963, two classes made up of sixty-four recruits began their training at the new college.⁵
Sgt. Jim Forbes was one of the graduates of those first classes. In his reflections on what the Ontario Police College was like in 1963, Forbes remembered the terrible food and outdated buildings of those early years.
We had to keep telling ourselves that we were the first class ever and we had to be patient and a little flexible to the trials and tribulations we would encounter.⁶
Forbes also recalled that the recruits (who were only men at the time) were always getting up to something:
"We weren't always doing positive things in the sleeping quarters"…There was the poor guy who was handcuffed to the steam pipe, snowball fights, races in cruisers along the old runway and even a break and enter in the OPC kitchen. After all the kitchen staff had gone home for the weekend…the famished recruits found an unlocked window and went in for a snack.⁷
The Ontario Police College still operates today and accepts more recruits than any other provincial police force training centre in Canada. A common joke among the early graduates was that they had gotten their "BA," which stood not for Bachelor of Arts but "Been to Aylmer."⁸

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The story of Springfield is tied closely to the story of the railway. The small village was founded in 1850 and had both a church and a school, but the community's growth was slow until the arrival of the railway.² The St. Thomas Evening Journal reported in June of 1873:
It is our claim that the Canada Southern Railroad has done more for us than for any place on the whole line except St. Thomas. In the course of two years, between sixty and seventy buildings have been erected. The railroad company is now putting up a large passenger station and a freight station, together with two wood sheds and a brick tank.³
The Canada Southern Railway came to Springfield after negotiation work done by the town of St. Thomas. In 1870, railroads were being constructed all over southwestern Ontario and municipalities knew the value of having a stop or station locally. When a London-Port Stanley Railway was proposed, the St. Thomas town council offered a $25,000 bonus to the company if they would build the railway's base in their town. Accordingly, the Canada Southern Railway purchased over 300 acres near St. Thomas for a station, an engine house, a roundhouse, blacksmith shops, paint shops, and a freight depot. The location of the enormous complex meant that when the Eastern line was built from St. Thomas, the village of Springfield was a natural stop along the way.⁴
The small community of Springfield numbered 125 citizens in 1870. By 1877, that population had grown to 800. With easy access to transportation, the small village became home to shops, residential houses, and a variety of businesses.⁵