Named for the man who ran its post office and its clay pit

Davisville

John Davis opened the area's first post office and pottery works in 1840, and eighty years later a land company turned his old holdings into a dense streetcar-and-subway suburb.

The neighbourhood is named for John Davis, an immigrant from Staffordshire, England, who settled the area in 1840, opened its first post office, and served as postmaster. Davis co-founded Davisville Public School and established the Davisville Pottery Company, drawing on local clay deposits; it was the district's largest employer for decades.

A land company's streetcar suburb

In 1911, Davis sold a large tract of land to the Dovercourt Land, Building and Savings Company, opening the area to formal subdivision. Through the 1920s and 1930s, Dovercourt turned what had been a largely undeveloped gap north of the old city into a streetcar suburb of houses, apartment blocks, and shops along the Yonge Street corridor between St. Clair and Eglinton Avenues. Davisville subway station opened with the original Yonge line in 1954, and the adjacent Davisville Yard became — and remains — the TTC's main subway storage and maintenance facility.

Sources

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