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The Great Fire of Toronto of 1904 destroyed a large section of Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada on April 19, 1904. It was the second such fire for the city in its history.
The fire was first spotted at 8:04 p.m., on April 19, 1904, by a Toronto Police constable on his regular street patrol. [1] The flames were rising from the elevator shaft of the E & S Currie Limited's neck wear factory at 58 Wellington Street West, just west of Bay Street (now TD Bank Tower). [1] [2] The factory was situated in the centre of a large industrial and commercial area. The exact cause of the fire was never determined, but a faulty heating stove or an electrical problem is suspected. [3]
With 17 fire halls alerted, [4] two engine companies and one hose company, the fire took nine hours to get under control. The glow of the fire could be seen for miles in all directions. Firefighters from cities as far away as Buffalo, New York, came to Toronto's aid at the request of the then mayor Thomas Urquhart. [4] The temperature that night was approximately −4 °C (25 °F) with winds at 48 kilometres per hour (30 mph) and snow flurries.
Over 100 buildings [4] would be destroyed in the fire; one estimate reported exactly 114 buildings. [5] Damage on Wellington Street West and Yonge Street was limited because one of the buildings, the Kilgour Brothers factory, had a sprinkler system fed by water tanks on the roof, preventing the fire from spreading in that direction. [6]
The fire claimed one victim, John Croft, who was an explosive expert clearing the ruins from the fire. [7] It caused CA$ 10,387,000 ($337 million in 2022 dollars [8] ) in damage [9] and put five thousand people out of work; at the time the city had 200,000 inhabitants. As a result of the fire, more stringent safety laws were introduced and an expansion of the city's fire department was undertaken.[ citation needed ]
A few buildings nearby survived including the Bank of Montreal building at Yonge and Front Streets, Customs House and their warehouse (demolished in 1919), Toronto Evening Telegram Building. Although the fire was officially under control by 4:30 a.m. the following morning, small fires sporadically broke out for the next few days and the remains from the fire smouldered for 2 weeks. [4]
The fire remains the largest fire ever to have occurred in Toronto. A previous great fire on April 7, 1849, in the St. Lawrence Market area, consumed several city blocks when the city was much smaller and many more structures were wooden.
Call Box 12, which was used to sound the alarm, is the name for the volunteer canteen truck supporting Toronto Fire Services today.
Toronto Fire Services Public Education Centre and Museum at Station 233 has a model displaying the area of the fire.
A 1904 film, The Great Fire of Toronto, created by George Scott & Co. about the event, was the first to be shot in Toronto. [10]
A fictionalized account of the Fire was central to the Murdoch Mysteries episode, "Great Balls of Fire". [11]
Part of the area cleared by the fire became the site of Union Station, built during the following decade. [12]
McLaughlin Motor Car Company Limited was a Canadian manufacturer of automobiles headquartered in Oshawa, Ontario. Founded by Robert McLaughlin, it once was the largest carriage manufacturing factory in the British Empire.
Queen Street is a major east–west thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It extends from Roncesvalles Avenue and King Street in the west to Victoria Park Avenue in the east. Queen Street was the cartographic baseline for the original east–west avenues of Toronto's and York County's grid pattern of major roads. The western section of Queen is a centre for Canadian broadcasting, music, fashion, performance, and the visual arts. Over the past twenty-five years, Queen West has become an international arts centre and a tourist attraction in Toronto.
The Fairmont Royal York, formerly and still commonly known as the Royal York, is a large historic luxury hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located along Front Street West, the hotel is situated at the southern end of the Financial District, in Downtown Toronto. The Royal York was designed by Ross and Macdonald, in association with Sproatt and Rolph, and built by the Canadian Pacific Railway company. The hotel is currently managed by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts.
The Cawthra family of Toronto was famous for its business, social and cultural contributions to the city. It is one of the oldest families in Toronto, and many descendants of the family's founder, Joseph Cawthra, continue to play significant roles in Toronto society.
The Battle of Montgomery's Tavern was an engagement which took place on December 7, 1837 during the Upper Canada Rebellion. The abortive revolutionary insurrection, inspired by William Lyon Mackenzie, was crushed by British authorities and Canadian volunteer units near John Montgomery's tavern on Yonge Street at Eglinton, north of Toronto.
Dr. Richard Lankaster Hearn, OC was one of the key players in the establishment of Ontario’s energy system.
Wilson Yard is the largest of the Toronto Transit Commission's subway yards and bus garages. The subway yard services subway trains on Line 1 Yonge–University. The facility is located on Transit Road north of Wilson Avenue, in the former city of North York, between Wilson and Sheppard West stations.
The Great Salem fire of June 25, 1914, destroyed 1,376 buildings and made over 18,000 people homeless or jobless in Salem, Massachusetts, U.S.
The Confederation Life Building, a seven-floor Romanesque Revival office building, is a historic structure in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Completed in 1892, it was designated a historic property by the City of Toronto under the Ontario Heritage Act on November 26, 1975.
Eaton's Annex was a 10-storey building containing both retail and office space in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It opened in January 1913 and was located at the northwest corner of Albert Street and James Street, west of Eaton's Main Store and north of Toronto's City Hall.
East Toronto was an incorporated community, currently part of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It covered much of the present day neighbourhood of the Upper Beaches, stretching up to Danforth Avenue in the north, part of it stretching to Lake Ontario in the south a portion of the present-day neighbourhood, The Beaches. The central street in East Toronto was Main Street, running between Danforth Avenue to Kingston Road. The commercial centre of the town was located at the intersection of Main Street and Lake View Avenue. Following the annexation of East Toronto into Toronto, Main Street retained its name despite Toronto's conceptual Main Street being historically designated to be Yonge Street.
The Discovery District is one of the commercial districts in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It has a high concentration of hospitals and research institutions, particularly those related to biotechnology. The district is roughly bounded by Bloor Street on the north, Bay Street on the east, Dundas Street on the south, and Spadina Avenue on the west.
The Evens & Howard Fire Brick Company was a manufacturer of fire bricks, sewage pipe and gas retorts in what is now the Cheltenham neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded formally in 1855 as the Cheltenham Fireclay Works and achieved sales as far away as Quebec and Africa. One source dates the beginning of the company back to 1837, but under different owners. In 1855, the works were owned by Charles Chouteau. The firm was incorporated in 1867 when Evens & Howard took possession of it. At the time of its operation, it was one of the oldest manufacturers of fire bricks in St. Louis. At one point, its grounds covered 133 acres (54 ha). According to one report, the mining was done below ground by "pick and blast". In 1904, clay extraction took place at three mines: two in St. Louis and one in Glencoe, Missouri. The company had an extensive equipment network of cars and tracks to bring clay to the plant. Evens & Howard's offices were located on Market Street in St. Louis.
Armour Heights is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in the district of North York. It is bounded by Wilson Avenue to the south, Bathurst Street to the west, and the west branch of the Don River to the north and east. Highway 401 cuts through the centre of the neighbourhood.
Beginning operation in 1861, the Yonge streetcar line was the first streetcar line in Toronto and the first in Canada. It started off as a horsecar line and closed in 1954 operating two-unit trains of Peter Witt motors pulling a trailer. Under the Toronto Transportation Commission, the Yonge line was the busiest and most congested streetcar line in the city leading to its replacement in 1954 by the Yonge Subway line, also Toronto's first and the first in Canada.
The McLaughlin Motor Car Showroom was built in 1925 and operated continuously as a car dealership until March 2007 when it was last occupied by Addison on Bay dealership (Cadillac) at 832 Bay Street, Toronto, Ontario.
Mike Filey was a Canadian historian, radio host, journalist and author. He was awarded the Jean Hibbert Memorial Award in 2009 for promoting the city of Toronto and its history.
John Ridout (1799-1817), still a teenager when he died in 1817, died in a duel with Samuel Jarvis. Both Ridout and Jarvis were from the small circle of privileged insiders called upon by the Lieutenant Governors of Upper Canada, to fill administrative posts, and sinecures, that William Lyon Mackenzie would later brand the Family Compact. Ridout's father, Thomas Ridout, was Upper Canada's Surveyor General. Jarvis's father, William Jarvis, had been appointed Upper Canada's provincial secretary and registrar.
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