East Toronto & The Railways, 292 Main Street, Heritage Property plaque, 2024
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Resource ID
11594
Access
Open
Address
292 Main St, Toronto, ON M4C 4X5
Credit Line
Heritage Toronto
Date of Creation
2024
Historical Themes
Program Category
Rights
Heritage Toronto
Time Period
Caption
East Toronto & The Railways, 292 Main Street, Heritage Property plaque, 2024
Description
Built in the heart of a former railway town, 292 Main Street is an example of 19th-century Ontario farmhouse design, with decorative brickwork in contrasting colours. Lumber merchant and landowner Donald George Stephenson was the home’s first owner and its first resident.
Stephenson was elected twice to Scarborough Council as deputy reeve (1867–1873 and 1875–1876), and he became the first reeve of the independent Village of East Toronto (1888–1894).
East Toronto flourished when the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) opened a major freight and sorting yard east of here in 1884. The GTR built York station (now Danforth GO), a 32-stall roundhouse, and the original Main Street bridge over the tracks, improving the neighbourhood’s central road.
With new jobs at the GTR yard, many people moved to the community for work. Stephenson became wealthy by building homes in the area. By 1888, East Toronto’s population was large enough to incorporate as a village, and in 1903, as a town. It became part of the City of Toronto on December 15, 1908. The railway yards closed the same year.
Designated in 2020 under the Ontario Heritage Act
Marker lat / long: 43.688392, -79.301906 (WGS84)