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The Bathurst Street Bridge celebrates By David its 100th birthday this year! Spittal
The present Bathurst Street Bridge crosses the railway lands east of Fort York and links Bathurst and Front streets to the Lakeshore Blvd. and Fleet St. The elevated pedestrian walk-way leading from the bridge to the East Gate of Fort York provides one of the two entrance points for visitors to the fort. Access between Front St. and Fort York was originally via a road which descended down into the ravine of Garrison Creek from Front St. A small wooden bridge carried the road across the creek where it rose again to the East Gate, historically the main entrance to the garrison. Another road led south to the Queen’s Wharf. In the 1850s, the railways extended their new lines east and south-east of the fort. This necessitated the construc tion of a wooden bridge to carry traffic over the tracks. This original elevated bridge was built by the Hamilton and Toronto Railway Company (the Great Western Railway Company) and the Ontario, Simcoe and Lake Huron Railway Company (the Northern Rail-way Company) at the insistence of the British Ordnance Department. In 1860, men employed at the excavation for the bridge uncovered the remains of 15 soldiers just east of Bathurst St. The remains appeared to be those of both British and American soldiers killed in the Battle of York in 1813. The bodies were collected and reburied, we believe, at Victoria Square Cemetery. This bridge existed until a steel truss bridge was constructed across the railway lands, sometime in the 19th late century. The present overhead steel truss bridge was built in 1903 by the Canadian Bridge Company Ltd. The bridge weighs 750 tons and is 198 feet in length. Originally located at the Humber River and Lakeshore Rd. it was moved to its present location in 1916 to replace the older truss bridge. Like the old roads, the original wooden bridge and the first steel truss bridge, this steel truss bridge was angled west towards Fort York from the south end of Bathurst Street which then ended at its intersection with Front Street. Access to Fort York and the Road to the Queen’s Wharf (as it was called) was via these bridges.
At the same time that the present structure was moved in 1916, street car tracks of the Toronto Railway Company were laid across the bridge. These double, open tracks extended west from the bridge on a trestle along the north side of Fort York and then across the Garrison Common to provide the eastern entrance to the Exhibition Grounds. The Bathurst Street Bridge and this street car route were officially opened on August 25, 1916. In 1930, Toronto City Council approved the ex-tension of Bathurst St. south from Front St. The 1903 bridge, moved in 1916, was lifted in 1931 and realigned 22 degrees east to extend directly south from Front St. A long sloping viaduct carried Bathurst St. south to the new Lakeshore Blvd. At the same time, the existing street car track route across the north side of Fort York was closed and new tracks were laid south to Fleet St. The bridge was finished in 1931 and the new streetcar route opened on June 22, 1931. The pedestrian bridge leading from Bathurst St. to the East Gate of the fort was constructed at the same time. The streetcar stop at the pedestrian bridge to Fort York operated from the summer of 1931 until the opening of Fort York Boulevard in August of 2002. The deck of the Bathurst Street Bridge was replaced in 1995. In the winter of 2002, the bridge was lifted a few millimetres and placed on new bearings; crews reported that the condition of the bridge was “excel lent”. The bridge was listed as a historical structure in 1985 by the Toronto Historical Board (now the Culture Division of the City of Toronto) the same year Fort York was designated a Heritage Conservation District. W X
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