West, Bruce.

Toronto.

Toronto, Doubleday Canada; Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1967.

xix, 336 pages illustrations portraits 24 cm

The romance of Canadian cities series

Vibrant, bustling and overflowing with vitality, Toronto is a city on the move. The cultural, industrial and commercial hub of English-speaking Canada, is literally the fast-growing city in all North America. Here, one of Toronto's most popular daily columnists traces the lively story of that city through four adventurous centuries-from its log-cabin, mud-path origins to its dynamic jack-hammer and super-skyscraper present. The Indians called it the Toronto carrying place (Toronto meaning "trees in the water") and 200 years after the first white man, a scurrilous soldier-adventurer named Etienne Brule is presumed to have set foot there in 1615, it was not much more than that - the southern end of the portage from Lake Huron to Lake Ontario. There were scarcely a hundred wood-frame dwellings in the community; the throughfares were mired and stump-strewn; and wolves and bears wandered through town raiding worldly centers as Niagara and Oswego looked down their noses at the rude village and dubbed it Muddy, or Little, York. But as Toronto grew, so did its proud and tenacious communal personality, tempered by such shared adversities as the Yankee invasion of 1813, the cholera epidemic of 1832, the tragic farmers' rebellion of 1837. Toronto also suffered its share of natural disasters: two horrendous fires which swept through the heart of the city, and a flood that did more damage than both fires put together. But there have also been joyful occasions, where the celebrating invariably took the form of staggering consumption of intoxicants. In fact, Toronto would throw a city-wide festival at the slightest excuse, be it a welcome for a home-town hero or the inaugural run of the first electric trolley car. Although Toronto has smoothed down the rough edges, and soft-pedals its reputation as the birthplace and mecca of the teeny-bopper, it is still very much an action town, making its own contribution to the culture explosion and boasting a world-renowned symphony and Concert Hall. Another generation should see its population over the three million mark and will be able to admire one of the most striking skylines on the continent. Whether the past, present or future, however, Bruce West has accurately portrayed Toronto in this lively volume, complete with 20 pages of photographs.

Toronto (Ont.) History.
Toronto (Ont.) Histoire.
Ontario Toronto
Canada, Ontario, York, Toronto History.
Toronto

History

Location: Library main canada 45131
Call No.: PO3093 CAN; ID:89-B4517
Status: Available