The Kingsway to Rexdale, in one borough
Etobicoke
From a rural township incorporated in 1850 to a postwar suburb that grew from under 40,000 people to over 200,000 in two decades — Toronto's affluent-to-working-class west end former city.
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Etobicoke — the name comes from an Ojibwe word generally translated as "place where the alders grow" — is Toronto's westernmost former city, running from the Humber River to the Mississauga border, and one of the widest-ranging in character of the six pre-amalgamation municipalities.
From township to postwar boom
The Township of Etobicoke was incorporated on January 21, 1850. Like most of what's now Toronto's inner suburbs, it stayed largely rural until after the Second World War, when its population exploded from under 40,000 to more than 200,000 within two decades — the same broad postwar suburbanization wave documented across our other former-municipality guides.
From the Kingsway to Rexdale
Few former cities in the region span as wide a range as Etobicoke does. The Kingsway and Markland Wood are among the most affluent residential areas in the city; Rexdale, in the north, has a very different profile and history — see our Toronto slang by neighbourhood guide for its specific role in the Somali- and Caribbean-rooted vocabulary this whole dictionary documents.
What's there today
Etobicoke is home to Humber College, Woodbine Racetrack, Sherway Gardens shopping centre, and a significant share of Toronto Pearson Airport's surrounding lands. It became a borough in 1967, a city in 1983, and merged into Toronto in the 1998 amalgamation along with the five other former municipalities.
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Sources
- Wikipedia — Etobicoke
- City of Toronto — Etobicoke: A Modern Suburb
- Etobicoke Historical Society — Brief History of Etobicoke