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ca. 1942, looking northwest onto Main St. S. at St. John's Rd. click to enlarge
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The town of Weston saw its start in 1914. The above photo marks its southern end. How do we know that the crossroad is at St. John's Rd.? Because the Peter Manson auto service station (up a bit, on the left) is just south of Lippincott St. W. (There is today still a car service station at this spot!) I had come across folk who claimed that Weston extended its boundary to Edmund Avenue (one block further south) but when I researched the matter I could only find one attempt by the residents of Edmund Avenue to have this happen and that request was subsequently denied by the Township of York. I forgot when this happened and couldn't locate on my computer the newspaper article that reported it. In a new search today, I found a similar story dating to October 1920.
Of course, the residents of Edmund Avenue could have asked again but I deemed it unlikely as I had a 1924 and a 1935 map that still had the St. John's Rd. boundary. In my new search I did find a resolution to all this. On page 34 of the 11 November 1930 Toronto Daily Star was an article on Walter Pollett running for Weston's 1931 mayoralty:
"Mr. Pollett was elected to the [Weston] council a year after he became eligible, since previously his home on Edmund Ave. had been in Mount Dennis. Seven years ago this month a portion of Mount Dennis bounding the southern part of the town of Weston was annexed and Mr. Pollett was one of the most active supporters of this step."
So the boundary expansion happened in November 1923. The 1924 map might have missed the news, being too soon after. A close look at the 1935 map could find no year that was part of the map itself. I now feel that the 1935 may have been a library misidentification.
Looking further, I found a 1923 map of York Township that I had not previously come across. And yes, this map clearly excluded Edmund Avenue from the township:
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| York Township (1923) click to enlarge |
So, as a small slice of Mount Dennis was added to Weston, would there have been any effort to move the entrance-to-Weston sign south? No. The section that was annexed is entirely on the west side of Weston Rd. One block later we reach the old-border line and Weston is now on both sides. Reference the more recent Welcome-to-Weston sign that is only a few meters south of the same St. John's Rd. — but now renamed — Clouston Ave.:
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| Welcome to Weston (2019) click to enlarge |
The tortured history of St. John's Rd. and Clouston Ave.When did St. John's Rd. become Clouston Ave.? The answer was slightly more complicated than I expected. Might's (greater Toronto) city directory for 1929 suggests that Clouston Ave. is entirely in Mount Dennis: west from Jane St. to Weston Rd. and west of Centre Rd. to the Humber River. That, one might think, leaves St. John's Rd. as the connecting, in-between part. However, St. John's Rd. is the old border of the town of Weston, where the properties north of the road were part of Weston and properties south, part of Mount Dennis. It seems that in 1929, there's a St. John's Rd. East that is the same roadway as Clouston Ave. (as far as the railway tracks) but only for the north side of it. There's a St. John's Rd. West running west from Main St. S. to the Humber River that, because of the annexation of that part of Mount Dennis, is on both sides of the roadway until we get to Centre Rd. At that point, St. John's Rd. West uses the same roadway as Clouston Ave., but only for the north side of it.
One might think that things remained this way until 1965 when both St. John's Rd. East and St. John's Rd. West were transformed into Clouston Ave. Likely this was in preparation for the 1967 amalgamation of Weston and the Township of York (of which Mount Dennis was a part) into the Borough of York. There's a small complication that I have yet to fully untangle. When I perused Might's directory for 1942, I found a St. John's Drive that appears to be a renaming of the Mount Dennis Clouston Ave. that ran west from Centre Rd. to the Humber River. So (in 1942 at least) there's a (Weston) St. John's Rd. West using the same roadway as a (Mount Dennis) St. John's Drive!
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