page_title: Willowdale, Toronto
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Willowdale, Toronto / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Houses in w:Willowdale, Toronto
context_page_description: Willowdale is a neighbourhood in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the district of North York. It developed from three postal villages: Newtonbrook, Willowdale and Lansing.
  Willowdale began as a postal village which covered the area from Finch Avenue at the north to Elmwood Ave at the south and Bathurst Street at the west to Bayview Avenue at the east. The postal village of Lansing was from Elmwood Ave. at the north to approx. Hwy. 401 at the south and Bathurst St. at the west to Bayview Ave. at the east. The north–south centreline of both Lansing & Willowdale was Yonge Street. The postal village of Lansing remained in existence until the post office at Lansing corner was closed. When a new post office was built in Willowdale, the postal villages of Lansing and Willowdale were combined as the new postal village of Willowdale, within the Township of North York.
  North York City Centre is centred at the intersection of Yonge St. and Empress Avenue/Park Home Avenue and is commonly thought to be the core of Willowdale, as well as North York itself, though its high-rise residential and commercial development sets it apart from much of the rest of Willowdale.
context_section_description: Willowdale was first settled by Jacob Cummer (Jacob Kummer), who immigrated to Canada from the United States in 1797. Cummer was a mill owner on the nearby Don River, a proprietor of a tinsmith shop on Yonge Street and a self-trained doctor and veterinarian. Cummer was held in such high esteem by his neighbours they called the area "Kummer's Settlement". Cummer Avenue is named for Cummer.
  David Gibson, a distinguished land surveyor, was another leader in this community. Like most of his neighbours, Gibson participated in the ill-fated Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837. He was thus charged with high treason and escaped to the United States, where he found employment as the First Assistant Engineer on the building of the Erie Canal.
  Gibson returned to his Yonge Street farm in 1851, after being pardoned for his role in the Rebellion. He then helped to establish the "Willow Dale" post office, named after the many willow trees that once graced this district. Members of the Gibson family were still living in Gibson House in the 1920s when the residential subdivision of Willowdale began to take place. The Gibson House, built in 1851 in the Georgian Rival style, still stands in its original location at 5172 Yonge Street, and is now a historic house museum.
  Opened in 1948, York Cemetery was located in the southwest of the neighbourhood. Several notable individuals are interred there, including the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, and Tim Horton. The single-family homes range in age from the original 1910 to 1950s construction (one- and two-storey pre-war houses and modest one-and-a-half-storey postwar houses). 
  Beginning on a large scale in the 1990s, very large replacement two-storey luxury homes were constructed on lots originally occupied by smaller houses. It is in this neighbourhood that the term "monster homes" was first applied by Torontonians.
  In 2018, the Toronto van attack, the deadliest vehicle ramming attack in Canadian history, occurred in Willowdale.
caption: Large two-storey luxury homes emerged in the neighbourhood in the early-1990s.
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