"The Old Mill"

Photo by Alan L Brown - Posted July, 2007

Photo by Alan L Brown - Posted April, 2013

Photo Source - Toronto Archives Fonds 1568, Item 512

Photo by Alan L Brown - Posted July, 2007

Yes, this is the old mill. The ruins were recently rebuilt as part of the Old Mill Inn at 45 Old Mill Road. An Etobicoke Historical Board and Etobicoke Historical Society plaque in a sunken garden just to the right of the scene in the photograph has this to say:

Plaque coordinates: 43.650827 -79.493331

The ruins standing here today are all that remain of a seven story flour mill built in 1848 to replace an earlier mill, both built by William Tyrrell of Weston for William Gamble, Etobicoke's first reeve. In 1881, the mill suffered the fate of earlier mills and was destroyed by fire. The ruins were designated under the Ontario Heritage Act of 1983.
The King's Mill, Toronto's first industrial building, was built in 1793 near this site, on order of Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, to mill lumber for the proposed town of York. German-speaking Nicholas Miller was the millwright, assisted by the Queen's Rangers.
The Old Mill Tea Garden Restaurant was opened in 1914 as a community amenity by Robert Home Smith, the developer of the Kingsway area.

Related websites
William Gamble
Robert Home Smith
Kingsway

More
Industrial Buildings
Etobicoke plaques

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