Mimico
Mimico is a neighbourhood in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, being located in the south-west area of Toronto on Lake Ontario. It is in the south-east corner of the former Township of Etobicoke, and was an independent municipality from 1911 to 1967.
Mimico, which was named after the passenger pigeon, is the oldest of the former Lakeshore Municipalities. The Town of Mimico was established by a plan of sub-division in 1856, but was not sub-divided from the former Township of Etobicoke until 1911. The land area of Mimico originated mainly from three family farms, namely: Stock Estate, Hendry Estate, Van Every Estate. Mimico was an independent municipality until 1967, when it was amalgamated into the new Borough of Etobicoke, which was itself amalgamated in 1998 into the current city of Toronto.
Today, Mimico is primarily a residential area with two commercial strips; one along Royal York Road and the other along Lake Shore Boulevard West, parallel to the shoreline. There is also a former commercial strip along Mimico Avenue connecting Royal York Road and Lake Shore Boulevard West. Some areas of industrial use exist along the railway corridor. In early 2012, Toronto Life magazine ranked Mimico first on their "Where to Buy Now" list of Toronto neighbourhoods.
Etymology
The name 'Mimico' is derived from the Ojibwe word omiimiikaa meaning "abundant with wild pigeons". The 'pigeon' after which Mimico was named was the Passenger pigeon. It was thought to have been the most numerous species in the world at the time European colonization began in North America and is now extinct.Boundaries
The former Town of Mimico is bounded by Evans Avenue, Algoma Street and Manitoba Street to the north, Lake Ontario to the south, a line midway between Fleeceline Road and Louisa Street to the East, with the western boundary along a line through Dwight Avenue and St. George Street. These boundaries for Mimico are defined on City of Toronto zoning maps. See:- Town of Mimico, Ward Map
- City of Toronto, Urban Development Services West District, map, Etobicoke Zoning Mimico South
- Toronto, City Planning West District, map, Etobicoke Zoning Mimico North
These other areas outside Mimico were never part of the Town of Mimico and are not considered part of the Mimico neighbourhood.
Character
Historically, The Town of Mimico had few municipal buildings and none of these survive. Architecturally, homes in Mimico range from grand lakeside estates to bungalows built in the 1920s to 1940s, and low rise apartment buildings built in the 1950s and 1960s. East of historic Mimico between Mimico Creek on the west and the Humber River to the east, there is a large area of condominium high-rise tower development at the former "Motel Strip" area of Humber Bay along the lake shore.Lake Shore Blvd. West is also home to many Eastern European delicatessen, independent stores and bakeries, giving the area an Eastern European atmosphere.
Businesses in Mimico's commercial strips along Royal York and Lake Shore Boulevard West have organised themselves into two Business Improvement Areas: 'Mimico Village' and 'Mimico by the Lake'.
Landmarks
- Mimico Post Office Original site is now St. Leo's Church, the Postmaster's home is now St. Leo's Rectory
- Mimico Centennial Library Site of former Mimico Carnegie Library.
- Mimico GO Station
- Connaught Masonic Hall, Mimico
- Mimico Legion Hall Joined with New Toronto Legion Hall
- Hogle Funeral Home
Churches
- Christ Church Anglican First Church in Etobicoke
- Wesley Mimico United Church 1927 Union of Wesley Methodist Church and St. Paul's Presbyterian Church
- Mimico Presbyterian Church Built 1891, a new church building built beside the old in 1958
- Mimico Baptist Church Built 1922
- St. Leo's Roman Catholic Church First Catholic Parish in Etobicoke, Also former home of the Lakeshore Beavers, Cubs and Scouts
- Martin Luther Evangelical Lutheran Church
- Mimico Gospel Hall
- Mimico United Pentecostal
History
One of Etobicoke's most prominent businessmen, William Gamble, opened a sawmill on the west bank of Mimico Creek up from the lake, and a small settlement for the mill workers was built nearby. With Mr Gamble's patronage Etobicoke's first church, Christ Church, was opened on Church Street. At this time, Mimico was in Etobicoke Township, which had been meeting with the other townships in the southern part of the County of York as the Township of York. Mr. Gamble eventually moved his business away, but with the addition of a school at the foot of Church St, Mimico would not disappear.
Early development (1850–1905)
By 1850, after the Union of The Canadas, Etobicoke was formally recognised as a Township. The Great Western Railway was built through the southern part of the Township. The first Mimico railway station opened in 1855, just north of the tracks beside Christ Church on Church St.. A plan of subdivision was commissioned with side-streets for the 'Town of Mimico'. Mimico was advertised as being '8 minutes' from Toronto, then bordered by Dufferin St. In 1858, a Mimico post office had been opened just south of the Railway Station on Church St. where St. Leo's Church is today and in 1863, the Wesley Methodist Church was established.This prompted the original Mimico area on Dundas St. to adopt a new name; Islington. In Tremaine's 1860 Map of York County, the Mimico subdivision is reprinted with all its side streets, however by 1861, the plan had already failed, the area largely returning to agricultural use. Mimico's founding families were therefore mostly farmers: the Van Everys, the Hendrys and the Stocks.
Between 1883 and 1893, there were 13 separate annexations to the City of Toronto which brought the border of that city to the Humber River. In 1890, the Mimico Real Estate Security Company Ltd was formed to divide and sell lots in Mimico. This plan included the subdivision of Mr. Edward Stock's land as far north as the Stock's Side Road and a cattle path he had established as a shortcut from Church St. to Lake Shore Road became Mimico Avenue.
Around that time, the Mimico area was incorrectly shown on some fire insurance plans as extending North of Lake Ontario, West of the Humber River, South of North Queen Street and East of Mimico Avenue, as the community of Mimico was located in the immediate vicinity of the railway station and post office. A year later a Presbyterian Church was built on Mimico Avenue. Mimico was expected to grow quickly. A second post office was opened in the Town of New Toronto. A small number of Victorian buildings were built on the newly laid out streets assuring that this time they would not simply disappear. Mimico and the other lakeshore communities west of the Humber River were eventually linked by an independent radial railway line run by the Toronto and Mimico Electric Railway and Light Company, which originated in the Sunnyside area. This line was originally intended to link with a line started from Hamilton. However, the western end of the T&M was never completed past Port Credit.
The radial railway line brought many of Toronto's wealthy to Mimico's waterfront area, where several large estates were built. First and most impressive of which was the Featherstonaugh Estate which was shaped like a castle at the bottom of Royal York Rd. This period in which Mimico took shape was also the period in which Mimico's namesake, the passenger pigeon, disappeared from the area, the last known bird dying near the beginning of the next century in the United States. A Mimico resident, Mr. John Kay on noticing the disappearance of this species donated a stuffed passenger pigeon to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto to preserve some of the last evidence of what had been Mimico's namesake.
Incorporation (1905–1967)
Mimico became a police village in 1905 and the next year the Grand Trunk Railway's Mimico railway yards were opened. Mimico became a village in 1911 electing its first Village Reeve, Robert Skelton. The same year, a second post office named 'Mimico Beach' was established to serve the southern half of Mimico, located on Lake Shore Road. Mimico became the smallest community to obtain a Carnegie Library in which the town council met at first. The first immigrants began to arrive in Mimico and at this time Etobicoke's first Catholic Church was built in Mimico, St. Leo's.Mimico's largest employer was traditionally the railway, but because New Toronto was planned as an industrial town, many larger industries located there. Nevertheless, a new train station was needed and was built on the south side of the tracks near the north end of Station Road. In 1909, a hotel was established beside the railway called the Windsor Hotel. Although other 1890s subdivisions in Toronto at Roncesvalles and the Beaches were entirely built up in the pre-war years, Mimico's growth was slow with no street being fully built and some still without any residences built on them. Nevertheless, many foursquare houses were built mostly in south-central Mimico in this period. In 1916, a referendum was held on the question of New Toronto joining Mimico, this was accepted by Mimico voters but rejected in New Toronto. Mimico incorporated as a fully independent town in 1917.
During the First World War, in 1917, Mimico became fully independent and elected its first Mayor, John Harrison, by acclamation. The town also reacted to the sensational execution of British Nurse Edith Cavell by naming Mimico's old Southampton Street in her memory in 1916. Another street was also given this name in Toronto's East End leading to recent attempts by Toronto to rename Mimico's Cavell Ave. At the end of the war, the local chapter of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, who met at the Carnegie Library, presented the town with two plaques honouring all those from the town who had enlisted and another honouring those who had died.
File:MimicoLakeShoreLookingEastFromMimico.jpg|left|thumb|275px|Streetcar tracks along Lake Shore Boulevard, 1927. In 1928, the local streetcar line was merged with the Toronto streetcar system.
With the union of the Methodist, Congregational and many Presbyterian churches, the old Wesley Methodist Church on Church St became vacant as a new United Church was built on Mimico Ave. The Town of Mimico purchased the old Methodist Church which served as the Town Hall. In 1922, Mimico's Baptist Church was built. Many bungalow style -storey homes were built in the interwar years, especially south of Mimico Avenue, and most notably, the tree-lined 'crescent' streets were developed with large cottage–style homes. In 1928 the local streetcar line merged with the Toronto Transit Commission which at first combined the line with Toronto's 'Queen' line.
Doubts about Mimico's survival appeared during the Great Depression when the Town went deeply into debt and many businesses disappeared. The depression also bankrupted some of Toronto's wealthiest including Sir Henry Pellatt who had already built a house in Mimico which stood at the bend in Lake Shore near Fleeceline overlooking the commercial stretch on Lake Shore. Smaller industries moved into areas around the railway tracks.
Just before the outbreak of World War II, Canada's first 'Limited Access' Highway, the Queen Elizabeth Way, was opened by Queen Elizabeth just north of the Town of Mimico's northern boundary.
Mimico's longest-serving mayor was Amos Waites, who alternated in this post with Mayor Archibald Norris. About the time of the Second World War many 1-storey houses were built, filling in most of the gaps in the housing especially in northern and western Mimico. Many new immigrants came to Mimico in the 1950s. In 1953, Mimico became one of thirteen cities and towns which formed the new Metropolitan Toronto. The next year Hurricane Hazel struck and while communities around Mimico were some of the worst affected, the storm left Mimico largely untouched. The Town of Mimico saw its future in attracting many more small families and working people to the area and began to tear down older homes that stood on large lots and filled in these and the last remaining empty lots with apartment buildings.
Smaller 3-storey apartment buildings went up on almost every street while larger apartments appeared along much of the Lake Shore on the east side. More commercial space was also built especially on the northern side of Lake Shore Road from Mimico Ave. to Burlington St. A period of church expansion occurred with Christ Church Anglican and St. Leo's Roman Catholic Church building new Churches at this time for larger congregations. St. Leo's new church was built on the site of Mimico's 1858 Post Office which was demolished and shortly after the postmaster's home was purchased to become the new rectory. In 1958, the Presbyterian Church built a new church building beside the old church. A legion hall was established in Mimico in Sir Henry Pellatt's former Bailey House.