page_title: Scarborough, Toronto
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Scarborough, Toronto / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Lac de Frontenac (Lake Ontario), showing Teiaiagon and Lac Taronto, and the land occupied by the Mississaugas and the Algonquin.
context_page_description: Scarborough is an administrative division of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Situated atop the Scarborough Bluffs, it occupies the eastern part of the city. Scarborough is contained within the borders of Victoria Park Avenue on the west, Steeles Avenue to the north, Rouge River and the city of Pickering to the east, and Lake Ontario to the south. It borders Old Toronto, East York and North York in the west and the city of Markham in the north. Scarborough was named after the English town of Scarborough, North Yorkshire.
  First settled by Europeans in the 1790s, Scarborough has grown from a collection of small rural villages and farms to become fully urbanized with a diverse cultural community. Incorporated in 1850 as a township, Scarborough became part of Metropolitan Toronto in 1953 and was reconstituted as a borough in 1967. Scarborough rapidly developed as a suburb of Toronto over the next decade and became a city in 1983. In 1998, Scarborough and the rest of Metropolitan Toronto were amalgamated into the present city of Toronto. Scarborough still exists in name and as a borough of Toronto.
context_section_description: The first known evidence of people in Scarborough comes from an archaeological site in Fenwood Heights, which has been dated to 8000 BCE. The site contains the remains of a camp of nomadic hunters and foragers, and there is no evidence of permanent settlers.
  In the 17th century, the area was inhabited by the Seneca at the village of Ganatsekwyagon, who were later displaced by the Mississaugas, who were themselves displaced by the settlers who began to arrive in the late 18th century. After the land was surveyed in 1793, it was opened to settlement by British subjects with the first issue of land patents in 1796, although squatters had already been present for a few years. The first settlers were David and Andrew Thomson. They were stonemasons who worked on the first parliament buildings for York. They each built mills. This activity led to the creation of a small village known as the Thomson Settlement. The first post office opened in 1832, in Scarborough Village.
  During the early part of life in Upper Canada, local administration and justice was administered by the colonial government. From 1792 to 1841, magistrates were appointed by District Councils. There were four districts in the colony of which Scarborough was part of the Home District. Partly due to a political reorganization that was a result of the Durham Report, Scarborough gained elected representation on the Home District Council. Scarborough elected two councillors.
  In 1850, Scarborough was incorporated as a township. After incorporation, Scarborough government was led by a reeve, a deputy-reeve and three councillors, each elected annually. Initially the council met in the village of Woburn but it was relocated to Birchcliff in 1922, where most of the population was then located. During the Great Depression the local government was on the verge of bankruptcy. The Ontario Municipal Board stepped in and appointed an oversight committee which prevented the collapse of local government.
  The expansion of Toronto in the east, in the 19th century, led to the development of housing stock along the Kingston Road and Danforth Road corridors in Scarborough. This led to the creation of a transit line. In 1893, the Toronto and Scarboro' Electric Railway, Light and Power Company built a single-track radial line along Kingston Road to Blantyre. Over the next 13 years this was extended to West Hill. In 1904, the line became the Scarboro Division of the Toronto and York Radial Railway. Service continued along this line until 1936 when it was replaced by bus service.
  On April 15, 1953, Scarborough was included within Metropolitan Toronto, a new upper level of municipal government with jurisdiction over regional services such as arterial roads and transit, police, and ambulance services.  (Fire fighting services remained separate.)  Scarborough retained its local council but gained representation on a new Metro Council. The new council had 24 members, 12 from the old city of Toronto and 12 from the suburban municipalities. The council was not directly elected but was made up of members of each of the local councils. Scarborough's contribution was its reeve who at the time was Oliver Crockford.
  In 1967, Scarborough was incorporated as a borough. The reeve was replaced with a mayor. Albert Campbell, who had been reeve since 1957, became Scarborough's first mayor. The new borough's council consisted of the mayor and four members of the board of control (which functioned as an executive committee). There were also ten aldermen. The mayor and the controllers also sat on Metro Council. In 1973, Scarborough increased in size when the West Rouge area, formerly within the Township of Pickering, was transferred to it with the creation of the Regional Municipality of Durham. The borough's status was changed to city in 1983. The number of aldermen was increased to 14 and the term of office extended to three years from two.
   
  As the urban area continued to expand, much of rural Scarborough was converted to suburban housing developments in the last third of the 20th century. At the start o
caption: Late-1600s map that shows the Seneca settlement of Ganatsekwyagon, in present-day Scarborough
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