Q1. Where were East Toronto's Fire Halls No. 1, No. 2 & No. 3 originally located? (P9)
Q2. Who was East Toronto's frst Mayor? (P12)
Q3. Who is Swanwick Avenue named after? (P12)
Q8. Where are the "Grand Trunk Fields"? (P13)
East Toronto
From little village, thriving town, to a part of Beaches heritage
By Beth Parker
There is a story connected to every community in
the Beaches. The thriving intersection of Main and
Gerrard goes back over 100 years to the time when
it lay at the heart of the Village of East Toronto. Our
busy streets of Kingston Road, Queen Street and Gerrard
Street have been traveled by foot, horse and buggy, and now
our busy rush hour traffic so people can commute to and from
the Beaches, Toronto’s east end, and downtown.
In 1850, seventeen years before Confederation, a little village
took root east of the new city of Toronto. The village was named
"East Toronto" and covered most of what we know today as
the northeast part of the Beaches as well as north to Danforth
Avenue. The village was surrounded by market gardens and
farmers’ fields, and was considered to be "quite a distance"
from Toronto.
The arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway
The 1850s were important in the life and commerce of Toronto,and surrounding area, because of the arrival of the railway–
the "iron horse". All of a sudden it was possible to move
large quantities of supplies and building materials to help in
construction and expansion. East Toronto was no exception
to the benefits brought by railways. In 1883, the Grand Trunk
Railway selected farmland five and half miles east of Toronto
so it could build its new, and largest railway yards.
These railway yards cut short the existing Dawes Road, which
originally ran from Kingston Road, past Danforth Avenue
connecting to Victoria Park, and made Main Street the chief
north-south roadway. The marshalling yards stretched along
Gerrard Street (originally Lakeview Avenue) and included
seven miles of sidings (enough to hold 420 cars), coal storage
facilities and a 32-stall roundhouse. A traditional-looking
railway station with a long, low roof was built on the north
side of the tracks, east of the new bridge that crossed over
Main Street behind today’s Norwood Terrace.
Beaches

East Toronto grows and prospers
As construction proceeded, East Toronto
grew. It was incorporated as East
Toronto Village in 1888, partly through
the organization of two influential
landowners in the area, D.G. Stephenson
and Benjamin Morton. There were
about 750 people living in the village at
that time. The roads were poor, made of
sand except for Main Street, and its few
sidewalks were made of wood. The village
council first met in the upstairs room of
Fire Hall No. 2 (now Fire Station 226, see
photo on page 18) then moved to a town
hall at Swanwick and Main where Centre
55 is now located.
Records of the time
say that these
early meetings
focused on
streets and
lane repairs
as well as the
establishment
of a volunteer fire
brigade.
East Toronto, in its "heyday"
as a village and then a town, was
a bustling centre with a "main
street", called–of course–Main Street.
Businesses lined Main south from the
railway tracks, such as Taylor’s Cigar
Shop, the Ideal Theatre and the Ulster
Temple which produced both dancing
and wrestling, on the west side at the foot
of the bridge. The intersection at Gerrard
created a busy commercial centre. It is
here on the southeast corner that W.H.
Snell opened a bakery and a grocery
store. There was also a farmer’s
market, a tailor and banks.
Despite its
small size, East
Toronto was
quite independent compared to other
villages of the time. It housed its own
hospital and library in the YMCA.
Later, the library relocated to Main
Street in 1921 which is today's Main
Street Branch (see Eastern Branch
Public Library article on page 15). There
were also three fire halls (Fire Hall
No. 1 on Spruce Hill, No. 2 on Main
Street and No. 3 on Dawes Road just
north of Danforth), churches, schools,
and a police station with jail cells.
East Toronto founded its own powerhouse
at the corner of Wayland and
Gerrard, and secured water rights from
Lake Ontario delivered through land
between Balsam and Beech Avenues.
By 1900, electric street lighting was
installed in East Toronto,
furthering its independence
as a separate community
with its own particular
identity.
Many industries also grew
beside the tracks, such as
Rogerson Coal at Osborne
and Gerrard, coal yards at
Danforth and Main, and
the McMillim and Costain
lumber and plaining mill
just east of Norwood
Terrace.
An historic church
with stories to tell
One of the churches built in East Toronto was St.
Saviour’s Anglican Church on Kimberley Avenue
(formerly, Mary Street). It was constructed in 1891 by
and for the railway workers and their families on land
donated by Mary Swanwick Morton (wife of Benjamin
Morton). The first service was held in "Morton Hall",
now a residence behind the church on Swanwick. Inside
you can see the original church bell. Some say it came
from a train or a train station. You can also read the
list of those who gave their lives in war, the calligraphy
provided by Group of Seven painter, A.J. Casson. The
church, with its small "village-like charm" was designed
by Edwards & Webster, who also designed St. George’s
Hall at Toronto’s Arts and Letters Club.
Beautiful historic houses
There also were many attractive family homes built
on streets such as Enderby, Swanwick, Bendlamond
and Lyall. Here lived the middle class families
and richer, local merchants and business owners.
Swanwick was named after Mary Swanwick Morton
(Benjam Morton’s wife) and their son, Edward Lyall
Morton, lived on Lyall (the street that still bears
his name). Another local merchant, Donald George
Stephenson, became East Toronto’s first Reeve.
According to local sources, he lived in the house at
the corner of Enderby Road and Gerrard Street, and
also built a series of row houses for railway workers
on Norwood Terrace.
Lyall Avenue is definitely worth exploring today. Its
houses were built between the 1880s and 1920s. In
contrast to neighbouring streets where the railroad
developed large plots of land, the fifty-foot lots along
Lyall were developed by local landowners such as the
Mortons. The result is a street of detached homes
that display a mixture of architecture including high
Victorian, Edwardian Classical and Toronto Bungalow
designs. The first 60 houses on both sides of the
street are protected as part of a designated heritage area
"I’ve been working on the railway ,
all the live long day !"
As a result of the construction
and the railway
activity, there were
many transient workers
living in the area,
employed by the Grand
Trunk. In order to
house them, the Grand
Truck built row houses,
located on Gerrard
Street, Swanwick and
Stephenson Avenues. A
YMCA originally (see
photo on page 14) located
on the south side of
Gerrard also provided
rooms for train crews
The home of Donald George Stephenson, and local residents.
Housing conditions for workers at that time, however, were very
poor. In order to address the growing deplorable conditions,
the original YMCA was moved in 1903 to the northeast corner
of Main and Gerrard. This larger and much grander building
provided improved housing and space for community activities.
The building was torn down in the 30’s where Ted Reeve Arena
was later built, but the name "Grand Trunk Fields" remains to
this day behind the arena. It is now the location of a favourite
summer spot for baseball, and just north of the tracks, recreation
and swimming is available at the Main Square Community
Recreation Centre.
Connecting East Toronto with Toronto
During the late 1800’s independent street railways were being built as communities looked for
ways to transport people to and from work by horse drawn "street rail cars" on tracks. In East
Toronto, the Toronto & Scarboro Light and Power Company ran such a spur line connecting
East Toronto to the City of Toronto. The tracks connected Kingston Road and Queen Street,
and went east along Kingston Road to Blantyre and south on Blantyre to Queen. A branch
extended north from Kingston Road via Walter, Lyall and Kimberley to Gerrard. The barns
used to house these early street rail cars were located on Kingston Road near Notre Dame
Convent.
East Toronto become a "lost village"
In 1903 East Toronto officially became a
town, with Dr. W.R. Walters as its first
mayor. Six years later, East Toronto was
annexed as part of the City of Toronto.
It population was now 5,000. Although
it was still considered a distance from
the city, transportation was improving
and its fate as a "separate" community
was sealed. The south part, the Beaches,
developed as an attractive residential
and recreational area. For many years
the north part of the area remained
industrial because of the location of
the tracks. When the rail lines were
relocated by CNR in 1908, the industrial
area suffered an economic decline that
lasted many years. By the 1940s the
railway yard ceased to operate and in
1974 the original railway station was
demolished and replaced by the Danforth
GO Station.
To this day, 101 years later, the
neighbourhood that defined most of the
former north section of East Toronto
maintains much of its intriguing turn-ofthe-
20th century identity. The Kingston
Road Business Association designated
the area as East Toronto Village. You can
still visit the MacMillim and Costain
block of stores at the southwest and
southeast corners of Main and Gerrard,
walk by Station 226 built on the site
of one of the original fire halls, visit
St. Saviour’s Anglican Church, and
appreciate the houses on Lyall as well as
the little railway houses that line Gerrard
and Swanwick between Main and Kimberly. Perhaps even crossing the field in front of
Ted Reeve Arena, you can hear the shouts and laughter of those hundreds of people
that worked on our railroads and stayed in the YMCA at Main and Gerrard.
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