Cooks Mills, Niagara Region, Ontario

Cooks Mills
Unincorporated community
The monument commemorating the Battle of Cook's Mills.
Coordinates: 42°59′47″N 79°10′44″W / 42.99639°N 79.17889°W / 42.99639; -79.17889
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
Regional municipality	Niagara
City	Welland
Settled	1799
Time zone	EST (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
Forward sortation area	L??
Area code(s)	905 and 289
NTS Map	030L14
GNBC Code	FASVS

Cooks Mills is a small community in the easternmost part of the city of Welland in Ontario, Canada. It was established, and is still centred, on a Welland River tributary called Lyons Creek. It is almost entirely a bedroom community, as there are few employers located in the area.

The community predates the establishment of what is now downtown Welland. In 1799, when present-day Welland was farmland, the Yokom family came from Pennsylvania and built a grist mill on Lyon's Creek. (Today, one of the roads in Cooks Mills is called Yokom Road after them.) Just before the War of 1812, an Englishman called Calvin Cook purchased the mill and added a tannery, a sawmill and a distillery. The place known as Cook's Mills became a prominent community of the Crowland Township; some early maps call the location Crowland Village.

Towards the end of the War of 1812, a fire fight occurred at Cooks Mills, involving an American contingent sent to destroy flour and grain that might benefit the British. Early on the morning of October 19, 1814, the American picket at Misener's Hollow, just east of the mills, was attacked by soldiers of the Glengarry Light Infantry. The British force was supported by a 6-pound field cannon and Congreve rockets. The Americans succeeded in driving off the British, and threw the grain and flour into the mill pond.

Lyon's Creek headwaters were in the Wainfleet Marsh. However, they were cut off by the construction of the Feeder Canal for the Welland Canal. The creek was carried under the canal through a stone culvert. Due to the construction, the water level in the marsh slowly receded. All the while, the culvert was being clogged up by debris. Eventually, the flow in Lyons Creek decreased to the extent when it was no longer able to turn the water wheels at Cook's Mills. The industries were closed and abandoned. Thus, the canal, which contributed greatly to development of Welland, became an indirect cause of an economic recession for Cook's Mills. Later on, Welland beat neighbouring communities in the running for the county seat. Cook's Mills became a farming area as opposed to Welland's industrial centre.