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For more than a century, running streetcars to the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) has been one of the most challenging transit problems on Toronto’s waterfront. Various routes have been tried, and later replaced by others better suited to the circumstances of the time. In some cases, these changes have literally battered down the fort’s ramparts or cut it off from the community, while in others something has been given back. From the fort’s perspective, the perfect solution has proved elusive. Today, as Environmental Assessments are about to begin on streetcar or LRT service through the CNE to the suburbs along the western waterfront, it is timely to reflect on what has been learned in upwards of 100 years. Visitors to the first annual Toronto Industrial Exhibition in 1879 travelled there by horse-drawn cars along King Street to Bathurst, where they got off and walked the rest of the way to the main buildings just east of Dufferin Street. Within two years, car-service had been extended west on King Street to Strachan Avenue and south to Wellington. But people still had a long walk, until 1885, when one of the fair’s more popular exhibits – an electric streetcar drawing power from an overhead wire – was introduced to carry fair-goers from the foot of Strachan into the grounds, a distance of almost a mile. Even then, it would be another seven years before the King line was electrified and passengers could step off, thanks to a stub line, in front of the Dufferin Gate. The lack of suitable bridges over the Toronto-Hamilton and Toronto-Georgetown railway tracks stopped streetcars from going right into the fairgrounds, and Fort York presented an additional barrier to easy entry. These handicaps came to be seen in a new light by city council when, in 1899, it assumed the assets and liabilities of the hitherto-private exhibition association, receiving in return the bulk of any profits from the fair. From then on, council considered its interests and those of the CNE (as it soon was to be known) to be closely aligned. When in 1903 the Government of Canada offered to transfer control of the fort and fairgrounds, some 184 acres in total, to the City of Toronto, most local politicians saw it primarily as a boon to the CNE rather than a chance to preserve an important historic landmark. That much was obvious by 1905 when council proposed to run a double tramline to the CNE through the middle of the fort—in one end and out the other—which would have demolished both the east and west gates as well as the buildings known today as the Blue Barracks and North Soldiers’ Barracks. The fort’s partisans put up a spirited defence, holding public meetings, lobbying officials and prompting editorials and petitions of protest. And when in early 1907 council asked the electors’ approval to borrow $125,000 to defray the costs of bridge-building for the streetcar line, it was defeated by a margin of more than two to one. But the siege didn’t end there. Within a year council sought a Private Member’s Bill from the Ontario Legislature to exempt it from needing the electors’ consent to borrow. The request was refused by the Private Bills Committee. Not content, council tried again and, second time lucky, carried the day. Its success was thwarted, however, when the government of Premier J. P. Whitney, who was personally sympathetic to the fort, said that it would tack an amendment precluding streetcars running through the fort on any private bill. Meanwhile, the skirmishing had moved to Ottawa, where pressure was put on Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier to intervene. He opted not to get involved, not wanting to alienate Mayor Joseph Oliver and the majority of councillors who were Liberals. Only
“Plan of Old Fort showing present conditions…” Sept. 13, 1921, when opponents of the streetcar began to arm the Opposition with documents intended to embarrass the government did Laurier execute a volte-face, announcing that a condition prohibiting streetcar tracks through the fort would be inserted in the deed granting the fort and CNE lands, which had been working its way slowly through the transferral process since 1903. The actual wording was less specific: a trust clause was included requiring the City to restore the fort to its 1816 condition and maintain it thus forever, failing which the grant was null and void, and the Government of Canada had a right of re-entry. These fine words proved inadequate to the municipality’s next foray, carried out in the darkest days of the Great War while the country was preoccupied with the war effort. In 1916, when a steel bridge built in 1903 to carry the heavy trains of the Grand Trunk across the Humber River was replaced, its trusses were dismantled, moved and rebuilt by the City and the Grand Trunk at the foot of Bathurst Street to carry road traffic and streetcars over the rail corridor. As this was happening, the Toronto Street Railway Company constructed a wooden trestle along Fort York’s north ramparts, cutting through the north and northwest bastions, then continuing across the open area west of the fort and on to the CNE. Although this route atop the ramparts was said at the time to preserve the fort, its effect was to define the fort’s north boundary. Within a dozen years, the railways had secured title from the City to those parts of the bastions cut off by the streetcar tracks. When Fort York was restored in 1932-34 to mark Toronto’s centennial of incorporation, the northern
with streetcar line in bold, 2007. (Toronto Harbor Commission Archives; dTAH) ramparts had to be rebuilt some distance south of their original line. Not until 1997 and 2000 was the City, at the urging of the Friends of Fort York, able to reacquire these lands from CN Rail, opening up the possibility that some day the bastions would be rebuilt in their original locations. Even as the truss bridge was set in place in 1916, its alignment at a 22-degree angle off the line of Bathurst Street was seen as temporary; in future it would be shifted to carry Bathurst Street straight south to meet Lakeshore Boulevard. Hence, three of the bridge’s four piers were designed as ad hoc supports; the fourth would be the pivot round which the bridge would be moved into its new position and set on permanent piers. This happened in 1930-31, and streetcars passed down Bathurst on their way to the CNE via Fleet Street. The fort benefited from the demolition of a porkpacking plant that sat astride its eastern ramparts, but lost the road access from the east that it had enjoyed for nearly 140 years, which was replaced by a footbridge. Those coming to the fort by car or bus were forced to use a roundabout route off Fleet Street and along Garrison Road. The fort’s second entry drive north off Fort York Boulevard was not opened until 2006. George Santayana once observed that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. For the sake of Fort York, we hope that after a century some lessons have found their marks.
“Plan of Old Fort showing present conditions…” Sept. 13, 1921,
decision. The severe winter of 1812/13 had produced extensive ice coverage on Lake Ontario and it was still clogging the narrow confluence of the lake and the St. Lawrence River through the middle of April. York was usually clear of ice a week or more before Kingston, making it easier to attack sooner. Secretary Jones was also pressuring Chauncey to get the naval campaign on Lake Erie and the upper lakes underway. He had strongly emphasized the importance of retaking Fort Mackinac, and when Chauncey detailed his plan, he made it clear that after taking York and Fort George he intended to head for the upper lakes himself (rather than just leave them in the hands of the nascent hero, Oliver “Lucky” Perry) and grab control by mid-summer. It was, after all, what his boss wanted him to do. So, York was attacked because strategic decisions made on both sides of the border elevated it from negligible to prime pickings. Prevost painted a bullseye on the town. Madison’s cabinet allowed the campaign to veer west, when the jewel they really wanted was more than 600 km in the opposite direction.
Robert Malcomson, who lives in St. Catharines, specializes in the naval and military history of the True Cause: The Capture War of 1812. His latest book, of Little York, 1813, will be published by Robin Brass Studio early in 2008. He is pleased to offer this article for publication in the newsletter.
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