A 1905 marketing stunt for a department store, now one of the oldest parades in the world
The Santa Claus Parade
Eaton's launched the Toronto Santa Claus Parade in 1905 to draw shoppers downtown, and the annual event outlived the department store that created it by decades, becoming one of the oldest continuously running parades of its kind anywhere.
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The Toronto Santa Claus Parade began in 1905, organized by the T. Eaton Company as a way to draw shoppers downtown for the holiday season, with Santa himself arriving by train and being paraded through the streets to the flagship Eaton's store on Yonge Street. What started as straightforward department store marketing grew steadily in scale over the following decades, adding floats, marching bands and costumed performers well beyond its original single-sleigh format.
Outliving the company that started it
Eaton's sponsored and organized the parade for over eight decades before the struggling company ended its involvement in 1982, and a non-profit organization took over running the event to keep the tradition alive after the retailer that created it stepped back. Eaton's itself went bankrupt in 1999, but the parade it launched in 1905 continued regardless, and is now widely cited as one of the oldest continuously held Santa Claus parades in the world, drawing large crowds along its downtown Toronto route every November.
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