By David Wencer

As the city marks its 175th Anniversary this year, it is important to remember that not all of Toronto began life within the original city limits. To the west, north, and east, there were many other villages and towns with distinct character, each with its own stories to tell. This May 1st marked the 100th Anniversary of when the previously independent City of West Toronto joined Toronto and became the new ward.

(Photo from West Toronto Junction Historical Society)

As the name implies, West Toronto was immediately west of 1909 Toronto, extending north from Bloor to a jagged northern boundary line well past St. Clair, and west from the railway tracks near today's Bloor & Dundas, as far west as Jane Street. The history of the area has been written about extensively, tracking the development from native trails and the early estates, on through to the 1880s urban development spurred by the arrival of the railroads. The early villages of Carlton and Davenport were soon swallowed up by their neighbour West Toronto Junction, and the area subsequently incorporated as a town, soon renamed Toronto Junction. In April of 1908, this town achieved city status, changing its name to West Toronto in the process.

A year later, West Toronto found itself in financial difficulties, generally attributed to the expense of providing the young city with affordable water. Thus it was that in 1909 the local citizens voted in favour of joining Toronto, becoming the city's seventh ward. According to the 1909 Toronto newspapers, this new ward was 1,608 acres, and gave Toronto an additional 12,567 residents.

The media accounts of the day reveal how the local citizens chose to mark this special occasion. As West Toronto was losing its official status as an independent city, the mayor, councillors, and other civic officials were all losing their positions (although under the terms of annexation, they were all entitled to future positions with the City of Toronto, if they so chose). Thus, the West Toronto School Board elected to hold a banquet at the West Toronto High School (now Humberside Collegiate) to officially retire their civic officials and recollect the rapid growth of their city.

West Toronto High School (courtesy of the Toronto Public Library)

The Telegram and Globe had regular reporters in West Toronto, and while they both describe the evening, the tone of the articles is startlingly different. The Globe ran the headline "A Farewell to West Toronto," and describes the scene in the auditorium where citizens watched "a ghost dance executed to symbolize the death of Ontario's baby city at the untimely age of twelve months." In contrast, the Telegram opted for the headline "Birth of the New Ward," and says Ward Seven was "christened a second after midnight, not in the solemn quiet of a sacred edifice, but amid a diabolical racket of bell-ringing, shouting and a blaze of many coloured fires. Engines screeched, dogs barked, men cheered, and women uttered pretty shrieks of delight."

As West Toronto officially joined Toronto at midnight of May 1st, those in attendance were able to mark the precise moment in which they became Toronto citizens. At the stroke of midnight, the lights in the auditorium were dimmed, and a previously cloaked object on stage was revealed to be a large clock with an illuminated dial reading "Ward Seven, Toronto."

While the articles mention musical entertainment, the focus of the evening was on the impassioned speeches delivered by a variety of West Toronto citizens. The speakers included former Junction mayors, federal and provincial politicians, the high school principal, the postmaster, and various local business owners, each taking the time to nostalgically reminisce about their personal impressions of West Toronto. Some, such as former MPP John Taylor Gilmour, had been there a very long time, and could remember the area when it consisted only of a few houses. For others, such as West Toronto Mayor William Alexander Baird, the memories were of the rapid development during the boom years. The general consensus was to put politics aside for the evening, and agree that Toronto's new ward was a community to be proud of. In one Telegram article, the Rev. Dr. Hazelwood, of the Annette Street Methodist Church, likened the union of the two cities to a wedding, declaring West Toronto to be a "good-looking bride."

While the new ward brought some new debts, the newspapers eagerly report on Toronto's newly acquired assets. In addition to the high school, Ward Seven supplied five additional public schools, a police station, and two fire stations. There was also a new post office which had doubled as West Toronto's customs house. After 1909 this customs house remained open for several decades, making Toronto special in that it had two functioning ports of entry.

(Photo from West Toronto Junction Historical Society)

One item of particular interest to the newspapers was West Toronto's adoption of local option several years prior to amalgamation. Under this law, the sale of alcohol remained illegal within Toronto's newest ward. The Telegram speculated that Ward Seven might serve as a sobering influence on the rest of the city, as temperance was then a major political issue and other parts of Toronto were closing bars in 1909. Although it may have had initial effect, the rest of Toronto eventually went wet, and what had been West Toronto remained the last section of the city to enforce a ban on alcohol, finally repealing local option in the 1990s.

One hundred years later, the citizens of West Toronto marked their centennial with Toronto by staging an event in the same high school where their forerunners gathered. On the evening of Friday May 1st, Humberside Collegiate hosted a historical recreation of the events of 1909. Actors in historical dress assumed the identities of some of the area's early citizens, their were family activities run by various community groups, live music, and food provided by local businesses.