Marine passenger facility.
Details of Site Location: On the shoreline at the foot of Dufferin Street.
Boundary History: A wharf of average size for steamboats jutting out into the lake from the shoreline at the most southerly point of land.
Current Use of Property: Infilling and other modification has buried the site, which is now covered with highways and parklands to the south on manmade land.
Historical Description: The Exhibition or Dufferin Wharf was constructed around 1880 and served for the next 25 years. It was a wooden wharf supported by stone-filled cribs. Steamboats arrived from the Toronto harbour and from points west through Etobicoke to Mississauga, bringing visitors to the Exhibition. From the wharf, a pathway led straight north ending at the Crystal Palace, one of the main attractions of the period. By 1907 the wharf’s business had dropped off and the wharf fell into disrepair. In that year, a tragic event led to the demolition and removal of the wharf. Two young boys had ridden their bicycles to the Exhibition to assess preparations for the fair. They ventured out onto the broken and derelict wharf and one fell through a hole and drowned. It took rescuers almost three hours to retrieve his body, which was taken to his home on Rusholme Road. A public outcry about the state of the wharf and demands for an inquest led directly to its removal. Newspapers of the time labelled the wharf a “death-trap,” accelerating the process. In 1926, one newspaper recalled the glory days of the wharf by printing a birds-eye view of the Exhibition grounds with the wharf in place – the sole access to the Exhibition by water. [A sketch of the Wharf circa 1889 may be seen here.]
Relative Importance: The importance of this wharf lies in the fact that it was the only one the Exhibition ever had, and should be remembered.
Planning Implications: A plaque should be mounted at the waterfront trail at the foot of Dufferin Street commemorating the wharf.
Reference Sources: Toronto Telegram, 20 August 1907; Toronto Telegram, 10 April 1926; City of Toronto Archives; Toronto Reference Library.
Acknowledgements: Ontario Society for Industrial Archaeology.