His son Lieutenant Colonel Roland Allen Harris was a member of the Queen's Own Rifles.

Initially, the park was only accessible by water and a wharf was built to allow for steamships to bring picnickers from the Toronto Harbour at the foot of Yonge Street.

The six-hectare park included a beach, with boating and canoe rentals, picnic shelters, a dance pavilion, restaurant, and an observation tower.

Fashioned in the Art Deco style, the cathedral-like structure remains one of Toronto's most admired buildings.

The interiors are just as opulent with marble entryways and vast halls filled with pools of water and filtration equipment.

The intakes are located over 2.6 kilometres (1.6 mi) from shore in 15 metres (49 ft) of water, running through two pipes under the bed of the lake.

In the summer of 2007, construction began on the installation of an underground Residual Management Facility allowing processed waste to be removed before discharging into the lake.

The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant has been used in dozens of films and television series as a prison, clinic, or headquarters.