The Leaside Bridge

The Leaside Bridge carries Millwood Road across the Don Valley, connecting the planned suburb of Leaside on the valley's east side to the rest of Toronto. It opened in November 1927, built jointly by the Town of Leaside and the Township of York to solve a problem built into Leaside's original plan: the Canadian Northern Railway had laid out Leaside in 1913 as a self-contained industrial and residential community with its own rail yards, but the Don Valley separated it from the older parts of the city. At the time it was built, the bridge was among the longest reinforced-concrete bridges in Canada.

Opening the door to Leaside's industrial boom

The bridge's completion coincided with, and helped accelerate, Leaside's transformation into an industrial hub. Companies including Canada Wire and Cable and, later, wartime manufacturers such as Research Enterprises Limited, which built radar equipment for the Allied war effort, located in Leaside partly because the bridge and rail lines together gave the area workable access to the rest of the city. It has been rebuilt and rehabilitated more than once since 1927, but its original alignment traces directly back to the 1927 crossing.

Sources

• Wikipedia — Leaside Bridge
• The Canadian Encyclopedia — Leaside