200 Years Yonge: A History

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

In 1796, Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe ordered the construction
of a military road that would connect York, the tiny capital of Upper
Canada, to trading posts and military establishments in its northern
hinterland. The road was based on an ancient portage trail that had been
used by the Algonquin and Iroquois for centuries. Over the next 200
years, soldiers and civilians would extend the road, now known as Yonge
Street, from the edge of Lake Ontario to the Ontario–Manitoba border.
In 1996, communities from one end of “the world’s largest street”
to the other joined hands to celebrate Yonge Street’s bicentennial.
This fine book features many of the period photographs, artifacts,
original artwork, and official documents that tell the Yonge Street
story.

The text begins with Yonge Street’s pre-European era, then covers the
impact of the French and English regimes, chronicling Yonge Street’s
transformation from a crude, rutted path to a busy transportation
artery, and highlighting the many communities that sprang up along it.
The changing face of the street is especially vivid in a chapter where
some locations captured in a set of photographs taken in 1922 are
juxtaposed with another set of the same locations taken in 1996.

Occasionally the text suffers from repetition and there is one chapter
on natural heritage that seems out of place, with its amateurish
illustrations and pointless prose about how many species of frogs are
still found in Toronto. Nevertheless, 200 Years Yonge is a highly
readable book that will be enjoyed by those interested in Ontario
history.