Coal wagon stalled on muddy Ashdale Avenue, a photo by Toronto History on Flickr.
When you consider this photo, taken just over a century ago, you realize that Toronto isn’t much beyond its infancy. This is on Ashdale Avenue, just a few blocks from where my home would be built — a couple of decades after this shot was taken.
The photo can be found on the Flickr Toronto History page, among others such as Leslie Farm that underline the city’s rural history. If you live in the old City of Toronto, it’s likely that your house is set on the muddy field of a former farm, perhaps one that looked like this.
That’s something to think about on a rainy day.
Via Flickr:
Photographer: William James
1908
City of Toronto Archives
Fonds 1244, Item 24
2 comments
It's interesting to know what our homes are built on. Mine is built on a drained marsh where there used to be a market garden so productive it used to have a special railway halt where the vegetables which grew here could be loaded onto trains. I don't know what happened to the soil – whether the topsoil was sold or simply churned up when the houses here were built but it's terrible now and it's hard to believe anyone could ever have earned a living from this ground.
Poor horse, with the laden cart sunk up to the axles in mud! Ours was once a rice paddy – they say.