The history behind that Fort Erie exit with the ‘wicked’ name

Most people in the Niagara area don’t bat an eye when passing the Sodom Rd exit on the QEW leading to Fort Erie.

But when friends come in from out of town, it’s a certainty someone will pipe up: “So where’s Gomorrah?”

Sodom and Gomorrah were, of course, the two notoriously sinful cities in the Bible destroyed by ‘sulfur and fire’ because of their wickedness.

But according to the Niagara Falls Museum, it didn’t start with that name.

“The History of Welland County, printed 1887, states that Sodom Road was first laid out as Concession Road 3 when Willoughby Township was first surveyed and mapped in 1787. Its northern end started at Chippawa at Lyon’s Creek Road and the southern end was at New Germany at the Willoughby-Bertie Town Line Road,” said the museum.

It was at the time a ‘corduroy road,’ made in the 1830’s by laying logs across the path side-by-side and covered with dirt or stone to ease the passage of wagon wheels over this surface. Backroads in Northern Ontario still use this process, having to replenish gravel where boards become bare.

However – and here’s where the ‘sinful’ part perhaps enters – the first written reference to the name “Sodom” for this road appeared in 1851 when Henry Ort applied for a license for his new tavern on the town line at New Germany. His license was dated December 28, 1851.

By 1853, there was an inn at each end of the Sodom Road; Willoughby Inn at the northern end and Ort’s Inn at the southern end.

The Sodom Road was stoned about 1915 and then finally concreted in 1929 and was the only road that crossed the “Tamarack Swamp” by 1850.

The original Sodom Road did not have the curve at New Germany joining it to Stevensville Road at the present day 4-way stop.

Now if you do want a Gomorrah Road, you’ll have to travel north-east. There’s one in Prince Edward County.

The oldest picture Niagara Falls Museum has on file of Sodom Road, dated late-1800s.