since by 1850 reserves were discovered and mined in Germany. The wheat and flour from Upper Canada would be replaced in the international marketplace by wheat from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, as those areas were opened up to settlement and farming. Manufactured goods were now more readily available to North York farmers now that the improved roads, which eased the transport of goods to the rest of the world, ran both ways, and the general stores of North York were full of desirable modern conveniences.
Farmers suddenly found themselves depending on cash. The focus shifted from doing, making, or growing what was needed, to selling enough goods to other people to get the cash to buy what was wanted. Even though most settlers were now well-fed, sheltered, and fulfilled in their endeavours, who could say no to cleaner, brighter candles, or a more efficient stove, a new reaper for harvesting grain, or softer, more durable clothes? And so was born our consumer society.
By this time, livestock production was the fastest growing type of agriculture in North York. With much more land now cleared for livestock food production and grazing, herds of purebred beef and dairy cattle such as Aberdeen Angus, Ayrshire, Herefords, Holsteins, Gurnseys, and Jerseys became a common sight. Many of the cattle were raised for export as breeding stock and beef-on-the-hoof. As might be expected, dairy products were also making up a significant portion of farm income by the time the nineteenth century drew to a close. Advances in transportation and cold storage now made it possible to ship such perishable commodities farther than ever before. Most successful farms would now have some sort of ice house, a small stone or wooden structure in a cool shady spot where blocks of ice that had been cut from a nearby lake or river in the winter were insulated with straw or sawdust. The resulting situation would have been sufficient to keep milk, cheese, butter, meat, and eggs fresher for much longer than ever before. Ultimately, the best hedge against fluctuations in market prices and customer demand would prove to be a well-balanced mixed farm where grains, fruit, vegetables, lumber, maple syrup, meat, and dairy products all accounted for a percentage of the farms’ income.
The twentieth century brought many changes to North York. As already noticed, the most exceptional change was probably the vast improvement in transportation. Where a century earlier the roads had been muddy, uneven, and stump-riddled, they were now flat and surfaced in crushed stone, hard-packed dirt, or even pavement. Electric transit cars called radials ran all the way up Yonge Street to Lake Simcoe. The first automobiles, trucks, and gasoline-powered farm vehicles were starting to appear. Rail lines now ran through North York, offering a reliable, inexpensive way to ship products to far-away markets.
Electricity was common in the city now and reaching further into the country all the time. These were the glory years for the farmers of North York. The brutally primitive conditions of the early pioneer days were part of a now-distant past. The burgeoning markets of Toronto and other nearby cities needed more food all the time. Social and educational situations were vastly improved. For the next fifty years, any farmer in the world would have been happy to have a farm in North York. There was only one real problem, and it would be addressed rather swiftly in 1922.
The problem was that North York didn’t actually exist until 1922. Prior to that, the area had simply been another part of the Township of York, but as the twentieth century progressed the farmers found themselves increasingly marginalized as municipal council ignored their concerns to focus on Toronto’s urban issues. In 1915, there was only one farmer left on council. By 1919 there were none, despite the fact that the farmers were paying nearly 25 percent of the taxes collected by the township.
In 1921, farmers James Muirhead, W.J. Buchanan, Roy Risebrough, W.C. Snider, and John Brummel criss-crossed the area in Roy’s new-fangled Model T Ford, collecting signatures for a petition requesting secession from York. The Private Bills Committee of the Ontario Legislature heard the application in 1921, and the only thing that delayed a vote on the matter was the fact that other farmers to the south of the proposed area wanted to be included in the new jurisdiction as well. After the boundaries were redrawn to include this new group, the bill was passed on June 13, 1922. The Township of North York was incorporated as a separate municipality on July 18 of the same year, with a population of less than 6,000 people.
When the inaugural council was elected on August 12, it was comprised of Reeve R.F. Hicks, Deputy-reeves/Councillors Oliver Bales, James Muirhead, W.G. Scrace, and Councillor W.J. Buchanan. Roy Risebrough was appointed police chief and sole constable in a force of one. The secession came in the nick of time as North York was soon to be swamped by a tide of unprecedented and unimaginable population growth.
It must be difficult for newer residents to imagine what North York looked like back then. There was no Highway 401, no Don Valley Parkway, no buses, or subways. Bayview and Leslie were two-lane dirt roads. Steam locomotives pulled trains of wooden boxcars across level crossings. Don Mills Road only went as far north as York Mills Road. Giant elm trees dotted the landscape, looking almost African with their tall bare trunks and broad high canopies, visible in old photos but no longer part of the current landscape.
There were no buildings higher than three or four storeys, and they were usually barns or silos. Horses, buggies, and wagons were the preferred means of transportation, sharing the rural routes with early motor cars. The air was clean and smelled of hay, grass, livestock, wood smoke, pine, earth, and wildflowers. There was so little light pollution that you could see the Northern Lights. Imagine that! As late as the early 1960s, people could see the Northern Lights in North York from the corner of Bayview and Sheppard. Anyone hiking north or east from Bayview and Sheppard in the 1950s and early 1960s would have seen nothing but woods, farms, fields, and the occasional country house or rural gas station. People fished and swam in the Don River.
This census listing provides some idea of just how overwhelming the growth of North York has been:
Population Growth in North York
from 1923 to 1991
| 1923 | 6,303 |
| 1933 | 13,964 |
| 1943 | 24,528 |
| 1953 | 110,311 |
| 1963 | 303,577 |
| 1971 | 504,150 |
| 1981 | 559,520 |
| 1991 | 563,290 |
Growth before the end of the Second World War was significant but fairly measured, as the population came close to doubling every ten years. The vast majority of this growth occurred in the two concessions east and west of Yonge Street, since Yonge was the only street with any regular public transit to carry new residents to work in downtown Toronto.
After the Second World War, however, all kinds of hell broke loose as the baby boom burst the dam and flooded upwards and outwards. According to the table above, nearly five times as many people were living in North York in 1953 as had been living there a scant ten years earlier. After that, roughly 200,000 people would move to North York every ten years until the growth finally slowed somewhat around 1980. The three decades that followed the war years would mark the end of farming in North York.
Residential and commercial growth was everywhere and municipal taxes were rising at an alarming rate, to the point where fewer and fewer farmers could even afford to stay on their own land. Farms east and west of Yonge Street, from Victoria Park to the Humber River, and as far north as Steeles Avenue, fell like dominoes. By the autumn of 1969 there were only a few isolated farmers still harvesting crops — men such as Fred Hampson, who farmed his own land, as well as land he rented from the Myers family at the corner of Don Mills Road and Finch Avenue. A few years later, it was all over.
It was a strange time to live through since a way of life was being erased before people’s very eyes, and yet most newer residents viewed this as a good thing. Progress was viewed as good. Clinging to the past was bad. Tear down those messy old barns, build some beautiful new high-rises, create some more roads, more stores, more cars, and more street lights. In the fifties, sixties, and seventies, historical preservation wasn’t really a part of the equation. Out with the old. Newer is better. It was a philosophy
