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For over a hundred and thirty years Fort York has been besieged by the sounds and smells of livestock from across the rail corridor to the north where, in 1875, the City opened the Western Cattle Market and Yards. Like the slaughterhouses and feedlots established in Toronto’s east end in the 1860s, the western yards were located where land was available and good rail connections existed. Cattle, sheep, and pigs from northwest of the city were penned and fed there to await shipment onward or sale to Toronto’s butchers. All slaughtering took place elsewhere.
This changed in 1897 when W. Harris & Co. built an abattoir between the rail corridors east of Strachan Avenue. Known as the Cattle Market annex, the area was joined to the main The newly completed Civic Abattoir with its twin Italianate towers is seen here on 14 May 1915 from the north ramparts of Fort York. In the foreground are refrigerator cars and slatted ones for part by a ramped bridge so livestock could transporting live animals by rail. One freight car is clearly labeled ‘automobiles.’ be driven over the railway. William Harris (City of Toronto Archives, fonds 1231, item 513) had been encouraged to go into killing beef by Joseph Flavelle, managing director of the William Davies Co., Toronto’s largest pork-packer. Initially Flavelle considered the beef business too risky because it might offend the independent suppliers of beef to Davies’ large network of retail stores, but Harris’s success soon changed his mind. Early in 1899 it was rumoured that the Dominion Government might sell part of the Garrison Common west of Fort York so the Market could expand again. Flavelle began talks soon after about purchasing a site on the east side of Strachan, ‘from the [rail] track to the Lake Shore.’ A contentious point was ‘a small cemetery for soldiers’ in one corner, evidently the Strachan Avenue burying ground. He also commissioned designs from Chicago’s William R. Perrin & Co. for a packing house that could handle both cattle and hogs. When Harris heard what was afoot he counter-proposed that Davies acquire a half interest in his business, to be reorganized as the Harris Abattoir Co. Flavelle agreed and became its president while still remaining head of Davies. There was an understanding between the two companies that so long as their ownerships were interlocked Harris would not kill hogs, and Davies would stay out of beef.
Meanwhile, in 1898, Charles Blackwell built the area’s second abattoir, a pork-packing plant, at Fort York’s east end. At the time Bathurst Street ended at Front Street, where a bridge led south over the railways to a fork. In one direction lay the fort, in the other the Queen’s Wharf. Blackwell’s plant (plans for which came also from Perrin, the go-to firm for such things) sat at the fork. Originally called Park, Blackwell Co., it became Matthews-Laing in 1911, then Matthews-Blackwell (1915-19), and finally the Canadian Packing Co. (1919 29). The Blackwell’s plant was expanded several times between 1898 and 1929, when it was demolished to allow the extension of Quality Meats Bathurst from Front to Lakeshore Boulevard. The most controversial expansion saw part of the fort’s southeast bastion removed in 1903. Permission to encroach had been given by the Government of Canada in 1901, but the company delayed acting until the eve of the transfer of the fort and CNE Grounds from the federal government to the City. During construction the remains of five soldiers, identified as Americans by coins from their pockets, were exhumed. While some bones were taken into custody by a lugubriously named Lieut. Col. Gravely, others “were unearthed and . . . carted away with the debris,” according to Jean Geeson, an eyewitness. The years before the Great War were good ones for Canadian exporters of beef and pork. In 1913 the Harris company, wanting to expand, relocated in the Union Stockyards at Toronto Junction. Its old premises became a cold storage plant. Anticipating Harris’s departure, Council decided to build a municipal abattoir at the Western Market to serve the city’s two or three dozen smaller wholesale butchers. Locating it in Stanley Park was considered briefly, but dropped in the face of opposition from the South Parkdale Ratepayers’ Association. Instead, a handsome structure designed once again by William Perrin was erected looking out on Fort York. It opened 4 August 1914, the day Great Britain declared war on Germany.
was photographed in 2008 from exactly the same place as the preceding picture of the Civic Abattoir, which is barely visible buried within the later buildings. (Photo courtesy of duToit Allsopp Hillier) facility. Today it specializes in supplying top quality, valueadded pork products under the Legacy Brand to the Far East and domestic retail markets. Nearing its fiftieth anniversary on Tecumseth Street, it is now one of the downtown’s largest employers with over 700 people on its payroll and sustains Toronto’s nickname of Hogtown. A Better Way In the last issue of Fife & Drum (see July 2008, ‘The Best of Times’) it was reported the TTC was eyeing a route that would cut across Fort York for an LRT line serving the suburbs along the western Waterfront. Now it appears a better way may have been found, if we are not reading too much into a letter sent jointly by Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone and TTC Chair Adam Giambrone on 2 September to Councillor Norm Kelly, chair of Council’s Planning & Growth Management committee. The letter asks the committee to defer considering the item until its January 2009 meeting. It continues: ‘Since the TTC considered the report, it has become clear that there may be alternative routes along the Fort York Neighbourhood that do not compromise the integrity of the Fort’s heritage. Both TTC and City staff members continue to pursue other alignments and opportunities to ensure excellent transit service without running through the site and negatively affecting its heritage value. The City of Toronto is pursuing plans for UNESCO World Heritage Site Designation [for the fort], establishing a Visitor Centre and preparing for the Bicentennial Commemoration of the War of 1812. An alignment that does not run directly through the site would maintain the integrity of Fort York and . . . be preferred to the current proposal – particularly if its impact on transit service can be minimized or eliminated.’ We applaud the good faith and efforts of all who’ve been involved in bringing this issue into better focus over the summer, particularly among our elected leaders, and hope that all ends well.
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