Dav­en­port is a neigh­bour­hood north­west of down­town Toronto, north of the Cana­dian Pacific Rail­way tracks and Dupont Avenue and south of Dav­en­port Road and the ridge that is the for­mer Lake Iro­quois coast­line. Its east­ern bound­ary is Bathurst Street and it stretches west to Lans­downe Avenue.

Dav­en­port is rich in his­tory as well as beau­ti­ful homes and real estate. This lit­tle neigh­bour­hood which became estab­lished in 1909, can trace its her­itage to thou­sands of years before this date. Dav­en­port Road fol­lows the centuries-old trail used by the First Nations peo­ples to travel the route south of the ridge. It was also used as an impor­tant route by the early Euro­pean set­tlers to the region.

The area that is now called Dav­en­port became home to small farms in the early nine­teenth cen­tury. One of the first set­tlers was Ensign John McGill, who built a home he named Dav­en­port in 1797. This was named after Major Dav­en­port, another local offi­cer, and is the ori­gin of the area’s name (the name Dav­en­port is of Nor­man French ori­gin: Dauen-port mean­ing “the town on the trick­ling stream”).

Map of Dav­en­port Village

In 1861 the North­ern Rail­way ran a rail line to the south of Dav­en­port Road and built a sta­tion in the area which they named Dav­en­port. A small vil­lage, also named Dav­en­port, grew up around the sta­tion. In 1889 the vil­lage merged with the nearby vil­lages of Car­leton and West Toronto Junc­tion to form the town of Toronto Junc­tion. In 1909 this was annexed by the City of Toronto itself.

Like the rest of the area known as The Junc­tion in the early twen­ti­eth cen­tury, the pres­ence of the rail­way lead to the indus­tri­al­iza­tion of the area and many small plants and fac­to­ries were set up in the area along the tracks. The res­i­den­tial areas to the north became home to the work­ing class pop­u­la­tion the worked there, espe­cially Italian-Canadians, who dom­i­nated the neigh­bour­hood and cre­ated the nearby Corso Italia by the 1950s.

It today remains home to many Ital­ian and Por­tuguese res­i­dents, but since the depar­ture of most of the fac­to­ries in the 1970s and 1980s the area has been some­what gen­tri­fied, tak­ing on some of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of nearby areas like the Annex. New town­house devel­op­ments have been built in the area replac­ing for­mer fac­to­ries and warehouses.

Dav­en­port has many schools, parks, and fam­ily recre­ation facil­i­ties avail­able to its res­i­dents, mak­ing this a great place to raise chil­dren and live in a family-centreed com­mu­nity. Many parks are within walk­ing dis­tances and Dav­en­port has a won­der­ful recre­ational facil­ity that offers many activ­i­ties for the active per­son to enjoy. Dav­en­port is just min­utes away from down­town Toronto and sec­onds from Corso Italia, mak­ing it easy to com­mute to shop­ping, work, and enter­tain­ment. With many bus sys­tems avail­able as well, it makes it easy for the Toronto com­muter to make this an afford­able place to live.

This won­der­ful com­mu­nity offers not only a feel of a small town with a great his­tor­i­cal past but offers a great place for peo­ple to live. Dav­en­port real estate is afford­able as the aver­age home price starts around $350,000 -  and with many schools and parks, Dav­en­port is a place to con­sider if you have a fam­ily. Also, with the ben­e­fit of liv­ing within 10 min­utes of down­town, you will find that it offers an easy trip to the down­town core as well.

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Con­tact the Jef­frey Team for more infor­ma­tion – 416−388−1960

Lau­rin & Natalie Jef­frey are Toronto Real­tors with Cen­tury 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these arti­cles, they just repro­duce them here for peo­ple
who are inter­ested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
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