West Toronto Junction Historical Society

West Toronto Junction Historical Society Historical Society for the West Toronto Junction. Archives are located in the Annette Street Library. Clair Avenue.

Historical Society for the West Toronto Junction neighbourhood, including the Junction, Bloor West Village, Carleton Village, Stockyards District and other areas north of St. As of September 2022, our archives in the Annette Library are open for public hours again - Monday 3-5 pm (except holidays) and Saturdays 11 am to 1 pm. We also answer email enquiries and are available at other times that may

be more convenient for you by appointment. We highly recommend that you contact us at [email protected] before you visit to make sure that we have what you are looking for. We hold Zoom events monthly (except summer), publish our journal, The Leader and Recorder, three times yearly, and post frequently to our page (West Toronto Junction Historical Society).

The CCM plant was built in York Township, not the Town of Weston but at the border of the Town of Weston. Remembering th...
08/22/2026

The CCM plant was built in York Township, not the Town of Weston but at the border of the Town of Weston. Remembering that in 1884, the Junction was an unincorporated community. then the Village of West Toronto was officially declared in 1887, this area was part of the Township of York.

Both the Township and Town of Weston benefited immensely from the establishment of the Canada Cycle and Motor and south of it, the Kodak plant plants during the 1910 decade.
The massive industrial settings provided the township with steady corporate tax dollars to fund its early municipal infrastructure and caused a rapid development of new housing, schools and other services. The Canada Cycle and Motor plant-1917, was located on Dufferin St., then Eagle Ave, then Lawrence Ave., on the extreme north west corner of the Township adjacent to the Town of Weston.

The decision by Toronto in 1912 to stop annexing its surrounding territories forced York Township to pivot from a rural agricultural area, especially the Trethewey Model Farms, a once extensive property located between Jane Street and Black Creek, into its own independent, urbanized manufacturing powerhouse.
It effectively set the township's southern pocket as an industrial zone, shifting the local economy away from farming. The arrival of these two industrial gigantic plants set in motion rapid population growth, infrastructure development, and economic stability. It also spurred the local council to improve roads, sidewalks, waterworks, and transit connectivity

These industrial plants drove local employment, tax revenue, and residential growth drawing workers from the surrounding York Township, the Junction and the nearby Shacklands in the south. The Kodak plant was in the heart of Mount Dennis and closer to the Junction, Silverthorn and the Shacklands.

Remembering the Automobile Skates made at the old plant

Canada Cycle and Motor Company, led by Thomas A. Russell, produced ice skate blades known as Automobile Skates starting around 1905. They made these skates using leftover scrap steel from their automobile and bicycle frames provided sturdy, high-quality steel for skate blades.

CCM's New Home, 1916-1917After years in the Junction at the old Lozier factory on Weston Road, Canada Cycle & Motor buil...
08/21/2026

CCM's New Home, 1916-1917
After years in the Junction at the old Lozier factory on Weston Road, Canada Cycle & Motor built a new plant in the Town of Weston, a separate community a few kilometres northwest of West Toronto, around Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue.

The Junction plant was at 201-207 Weston Road, about half a kilometre north of St. Clair. CCM later added buildings there for the Russell automobile venture. After they left, the site passed to Willys-Overland and then Canadian Acme Screw and Gear (until 1967). One original building, 201 Weston Road, still stands as loft apartments.

Ground was broken for the new Weston plant in the spring of 1916 on a 20-acre site on the south side of Lawrence Avenue, just east of Weston Road. The plant had a private railway siding so materials came in one side and finished bicycles and skates went out the other.

The last department to move was the office staff, on January 15, 1917. CCM said the entire operation left West Toronto for Weston without losing a day's production. 1917 was the first year the Weston factory was running. Early bikes from that plant said WESTON on the head-tube badge, not Toronto.

The plant quickly ramped up to about 900 bicycles a week. Collectors estimate production in those first years at roughly 27,000 to 30,000 bikes a year.

It became a huge local employer. Bikes for summer, skates for winter. Its steam whistle even served as Weston's fire alarm; one blast for area one, two for area two, and so on.

In 2011, former workers still gathered to talk about it. Gord Chard, a tool-and-die maker, met his wife Alice there around 1950. She built bicycle wheels; he made the machine she used. She told him it wasn't safe, he fixed it, and they married in 1952. They still lived in Weston. Gord kept the old plant whistle in his basement. (A more recent Toronto Star photo of Gord Chard appears with this article.)

Weston became known as the home of the bicycle. The factory stayed there for more than 60 years (into the early 1980s). The site is now a Tim Hortons, Wendy's, and fire hall along the same railway line. Worker houses were nearby; Gibson Avenue was once the heart of CCM country.

Today you can still buy a CCM Weston bicycle, named after that plant.

See more Junction industrial history on wtjhs.ca.

The first Canadian Tire Company in the JunctionThe Peake, then Rogers Hardware store may have been the first of many har...
08/20/2026

The first Canadian Tire Company in the Junction

The Peake, then Rogers Hardware store may have been the first of many hardware stores in the Junction, with the first Junction Canadian Tire store operating in the 1950s to about 1963. Info has it on the south side of Dundas Street, north of the complex Dundas- Annette-Dupont Sts. intersection, at about where Lucy McCormick School is located now. This was north of the Biff-Burger which closed in 1963c. In trying to find pics of this Canadian Tire Store, the best I could come up with are these, which I am sure will bring back memories; note the 3 gas stations at this location: Esso, Texaco and Shell.

Alexander Chisholm Building, south on Dundas, west of Keele, was a 3 storey building built in 1911 which house the May Brothers Hardware store for 50 years, beside it was Yolles Furniture store. The history of the May Bros. hardware store takes us to 1908, close to the Peake & Rogers Hardware store.

The Peake's Block and Sir Henry Pellatt, of Casa Loma, connection; and Lt. Gov. John Graves Simcoe.While Sir Henry Pelle...
08/19/2026

The Peake's Block and Sir Henry Pellatt, of Casa Loma, connection; and Lt. Gov. John Graves Simcoe.
While Sir Henry Pellett was busy pouring his fortune into his massive hilltop castle, his brother-in-law, Edwin Robert Rogers, was a staple merchant in the independent town of Toronto Junction-annexed by the city of Toronto in 1909.

In the late 1880s, Thomas Peake and Edwin Peake operated Thomas J. L. Peake & Co. Hardware. Their business was situated in a building known as the Peake's Block, located at the north east corner of Dundas and Keele Sts. in the Junction.
Thomas Peake established a highly successful hardware, plumbing, and tin-smithing business and the name remains a foundational marker paving the way for later legendary neighborhood hardware operations.

This hardware storefront and block was later operated by Edwin Thomas Rogers Hardware who in 1894, married Emily Mountford Pellatt, the sister of the Toronto financier and Casa Loma builder Sir Henry Pellatt.
This marriage bound the prominent Rogers family, descendants of the historical Rogers’ Rangers with the Pellatt family; noting that Major Robert Rogers’ Rangers fought alongside John Graves Simcoe in 1756 during the Seven Years' War.
In 1776, Rogers re-formed the unit as a Loyalist regiment called The Queen’s Rangers for the American Revolutionary War. In 1777, John Graves Simcoe took command, transforming them into one of the most elite, highly disciplined units of the war.

In 1911, the Peake's Block property was cleared to make way for a new, permanent financial brick-and-mortar structure; the 3 storey Bank of Toronto landmark.

THE GREAT JUNCTION GHOST HUNTHello, I'm Neil Ross. This October I'll be hosting the third Haunted Junction Pub Crawl an...
08/19/2026

THE GREAT JUNCTION GHOST HUNT

Hello, I'm Neil Ross. This October I'll be hosting the third Haunted Junction Pub Crawl and we're looking for ghost stories!

Ghost stories that happened in the Junction, ghost stories that happened to people from the Junction, or just random ghost stories, you can even make them up as long as you are waiving the rights to them in exchange for credit from the stage.

Post them here or send them to us directly!

Win prizes and impress your friends!

(No, I haven't taken up smoking, it's just a cool prop . . .)

Harvey Jackson was a Junction young man who was also on the Stock Yards & Packers Hockey Club player. (While you had to ...
08/18/2026

Harvey Jackson was a Junction young man who was also on the Stock Yards & Packers Hockey Club player. (While you had to be an employee, the rules were occasionally bent through convenient hiring as occurred with legend Harvey Jackson).

The Toronto Mercantile Hockey League was a highly competitive industrial senior hockey league, which included Canada Cycle & Motor Co, Imperial Oil, and Toronto C.N.R.
The roster famously featured future Hockey Hall of Fame left winger Harvey "Busher" Jackson, who played for the Stock Yards & Packers Hockey Club while simultaneously playing for the Toronto Marlboros of the Ontario Hockey Association junior league.
While you had to be an employee, the rules were occasionally bent through "convenient hiring" as occurred with legend Harvey "Busher" Jackson, when in 1928, while playing junior hockey, he was hired by the stockyards so he could play for the Stock Yards & Packers Hockey Team.

He grew up in a 3 storey house located at 200 Quebec Avenue, right near Humberside Collegiate Institute. Jackson spent most of his youth in this west-end neighborhood, and frequently skated nearby on Grenadier Pond, sharpening the skills that eventually led him to a Hockey Hall of Fame career and a 1932 Stanley Cup championship with the Maple Leafs' famous "Kid Line".
He did mention that one rink used was at Humberside and Keele, called Poverty Pond; this would be Baird Park; and he may have skated at the Humber Bay where the Hydro cement pylons used in 1911 are still visible.
Jackson may have also enjoyed going dancing at the Silver Slipper.

Remembering the bicycle industry in Toronto and the CCM move to the Junction from downtown in the late 1880s into the ea...
08/13/2026

Remembering the bicycle industry in Toronto and the CCM move to the Junction from downtown in the late 1880s into the early 1900s

Toronto’s cycling industry goes back more than a century, when the bicycle was this nation’s most alluring high tech product. It was during the 1890s that the bicycle was the world’s first mass market item and its constant innovation drove consumer demand to record heights.
This golden age of bike manufacturing had brands produced locally.
They were the Challenge, Pilot, Skylark, Cleveland, Antelope, Silver Ribbon, Gendron, Planet, Comet, Wanderer and Sun bicycles.
These brand names represent the prominent independent Canadian bicycle brands of the 1890s bicycle boom that merged or paved the way to form Canada Cycle & Motor Company (CCM) in 1899, at the plant located at Weston Road South, at the Harwood Plateau, the north border of the Junction.

The Comet Cycle Co. began in the early 1890s building a 5 storey factory on Temperance Street behind the previous headquarters on Adelaide St. due to the great bicycle demand.
This Temperance Street factory was CCM’s very first operational headquarters and manufacturing plant, operating from this location before its move to the Junction in 1906c.
Ironically, this area was created in 1837 when prominent local philanthropist Jesse Ketchum donated the land to the city under a strict legal covenant: "alcohol could never be sold on the property, a nod to the growing temperance movement of the era"; ...not much different from the location it moved to.

Aikenhead Hardware Limited took over the building in 1905 moving their main flagship retail operations and head offices into the space in 1905 not long after the Comet Cycle Company went bankrupt in 1899 due to heavy market competition. That same year, Walter Massey amalgamated five major Canadian bicycle manufacturers to form CCM, establishing its very first headquarters at this location.
The Canada Cycle & Motor Company (CCM) officially moved its operations from the Toronto Junction to its massive new factory in Weston between 1916 and 1917. WTJHS contributor, Clara Sexton- will be doing a posting about this new CCM location in Weston.

Reminder: WTJHS Archives Open This SaturdayCome down this Saturday, August 15 from 1–3 pm.The West Toronto Junction Hist...
08/13/2026

Reminder: WTJHS Archives Open This Saturday

Come down this Saturday, August 15 from 1–3 pm.

The West Toronto Junction Historical Society archives will be open for public hours on the lower level of the Annette Street Library (145 Annette St). Just knock on the door at the bottom of the main entrance and a volunteer will let you in.

Feel free to browse historic photos, research a house, or just chat about Junction history.

We’re also open Saturday August 29. Regular hours resume in September.

Junction history underground – the Keele Street Lavatory at the CPR subway-underpassSpearheaded by William Alexander Bai...
08/13/2026

Junction history underground – the Keele Street Lavatory at the CPR subway-underpass

Spearheaded by William Alexander Baird, the last mayor of West Toronto, 1909 and later a subsequent Toronto city alderman, the construction of the subterranean public washroom on the west side of Keele Street about 100m north of Dundas Street, right next to Vine Avenue and the former Subway Hotel began in 1910.
It became functional in 1916 with an attendant station, 3 individual stalls, 4 urinals, and a hand-washing sink area, lasting for about 60 years; also featuring tiled walls, marble sinks, urinals, wooden stalls, and steam heating during the winter months.
This subterranean public washroom also accommodated CPR passenger using this Junction stop. A decorative lamp post at street level pulled double duty by acting as the main ventilation exhaust shaft for the sewer air below.

This subterranean lavatory resembled closely to Toronto's other historic underground washrooms; at Toronto and Adelaide and Queen and Spadina. The Keele Street facility was accessed via an open stairwell descending beneath the street level, with a street-level opening enclosed by an ornate iron fence to prevent pedestrians and horses from falling into it.

From an iron works plant, Barnum Iron Works, in 1895, to the merger of major companies into the CCM Co. in 1899, this s...
08/12/2026

From an iron works plant, Barnum Iron Works, in 1895, to the merger of major companies into the CCM Co. in 1899, this single bicycle industry created not only local employment but a social-cultural change which resulted from the bicycle enthusiasm. This impacted not only the industrial powerhouse of the Junction, also Toronto and the growing Township of York.
The major railway corridors helped provide raw materials and then the finished bicycles were loaded onto railcars right at the back of the building to be shipped worldwide.

This new means of transportation, the bicycle, was the first form of fast, affordable personal transit, which also freed people from relying entirely on horse-drawn carriages or fixed streetcar routes, allowing them travel further into the growing suburbs and downtown Toronto; also adding for some, into the Township.
A social aspect were neighborhood cycling clubs acting as community hubs, hosting weekend group rides, track races, and winter social banquets that kept communities connected year-round.
It was this year round concept which led to indoor use of riding and racing a bicycle. We had influence by the French and Greek language; from Vélo-French, to Drome-Greek, the bicycle racing track word, Velodrome was used for fast paced track cycling in outdoors or closed arenas.
Toronto’s Velodrome-Velocipede Rink and Baths opened in 1870c at Phoebe & Soho Streets in the St. George's Skating Rink for the new fad, ice skating. It then capitalize on a new, booming trend, bicycling, transforming their winter venue into a spring and summer bicycle activity by laying down wooden planks, which provided the city's first dedicated, smooth riding surface for the notoriously unstable early bicycles.
It wasn’t long before major cycling events took place with the Canadian Wheelmen's Association Meet Tournament which was held on Dominion Day-July 1, 1884 at the new Toronto Athletic Grounds, later known as Rosedale Field-Toronto Lacrosse & Athletic Association Grounds, situated in the Rosedale ravine neighborhood, just north of Bloor Street East.
Historically, this is the same field where the very first Grey Cup championship game in Canadian football history in 1909.

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145 Annette Street
Toronto, ON
M6P1P3

Opening Hours

Monday 3pm - 5pm
Saturday 11:30am - 1:30pm

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