page_title: Eglinton Avenue
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Eglinton Avenue / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Construction of Eglinton Avenue across the Don Valley gap in 1956 (Cropped from original)
context_page_description: Eglinton Avenue is a major east-west arterial thoroughfare in Toronto and Mississauga in the Canadian province of Ontario. The street begins at Highway 407 at the western limits of Mississauga, as a continuation of Lower Baseline in Milton. It traverses the midsection of both cities and ends at Kingston Road. Eglinton Avenue is the only street to cross all six former boroughs of Metropolitan Toronto.
  The Toronto section was surveyed in the 19th century as the Fourth Concession Road. It was historically known as Richview Sideroad in Etobicoke and Lower Baseline in Mississauga. It was also designated Highway 5A in Scarborough.
context_section_description: There are two sources for the naming of Eglinton Avenue. Henry Scadding in an early history of the city wrote that it originated from Eglinton Castle in Scotland, itself named for the Earls of Eglinton. Several early settlers, impressed by the Eglinton Tournament of 1839 hosted by the 13th Earl, named the hamlet developing in the area as the Village of Eglinton after the Earl. More likely is the humbler story that it was named by the tavern keeper John Montgomery who settled in the area in 1830 and named the village after the Earl of Eglinton of the Montgomerie family, to whom he believed he had a family connection.
  The wagon trail connecting to Yonge between the third and fifth concessions (St. Clair and Lawrence Avenues respectively) soon adopted the name of the village and was gradually improved over the years near Yonge Street. In 1890, the area was incorporated as North Toronto, and in 1912, it was annexed to Toronto itself. In 1953, Metropolitan Toronto (commonly known as Metro) was formed. Seeking to build new connections to the rapidly developing suburbs, Metro widened and interconnected Eglinton to its current form through the decade.
  The eastern segment through Scarborough was known as Highway 5A between 1937 and 1953; this number also appeared on St. Clair Avenue West until 1952 when the Toronto Bypass, (the precursor to Highway 401), opened between Weston and Highway 11 (Yonge Street). The two pieces of "Highway 5A" were never connected. In 1953, what remained was renumbered as Highway 109; a year later, the road was removed from the provincial highway system. Because of its time as a provincial highway, the road through Scarborough was widened considerably. A right of way was also acquired to bridge the gap in Eglinton. Until the mid-1950s, Eglinton did not cross either of the valleys of the Don River. The road ended at Brentcliffe Road (unassigned path beyond Laird towards Brentcliffe and the dump was once site of hangar for Leaside Aerodrome) and resumed at Victoria Park Avenue (then known as Dawes Road). This break resulted in a bypassed eastern stub at Bermondsey Road signed as Old Eglinton Avenue. The Department of Highways relinquished control of Highway 109 to the newly formed Metro government. Metro built the new section of Eglinton Avenue, first between Dawes Road and Don Mills Road in 1955, and later between Don Mills Road and Leaside in 1956.
  In the early 1970s, the Richview Sideroad segment was connected to Lower Base Line, extending the street into Mississauga, when the Highways 401 and 427 interchange was constructed. It is still named Lower Base Line (the corresponding Upper Base Line being present-day Steeles Avenue) in Halton Region. 
  The structure over the GO rail line and East Don River is known as the Harvey C. Rose Bridge, and honours the chief engineer of the Toronto and York Roads Commission, later the Metropolitan Toronto Commission of Roads.
caption: Construction of Eglinton across the Don Valley gap in 1956, as seen from east of Brentcliffe Rd.
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2019:08:28 21:11:41", "Image ExifOffset": "2242", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4516", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7386", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2019:08:28 21:10:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2019:08:28 21:10:18", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}