(The Don Allen report)
* Originally published in the S.H.S. Newsletter #241, Feb. 2010

1950 advertisement listing the Kingston Road Lumber Co.

There were many companies that played a key role in the growth of East Scarborough but the Kingston Road Lumber Company certainly was one of the major ones. As there were no real subdivisions in the West Hill / Highland Creek area at that time, houses tended to be built individually and a local lumberyard was a tremendous asset during the transition from basically farmland to the local communities that still exist today. Some of our readers will recall a time when basements would be built and roofed over until more funds became available. Some of these “houses” stayed as basements for years. Many people even lived in garages until their houses could be built.

There was actually a Kingston Road Lumber Company located at 828 Kingston Road as early as 1920, but this article will give some history as to the business located in West Hill at 4071 Kingston Road (Stop 29A), on the south side of Kingston Road just east of the train tracks beside the present Guildwood GO Station. An article from a 1950 issue of The Enterprise states, “Cynics advised Charles Moore and Stan Butler to have their heads examined”, when they bought the Kingston Road Lumber Company in April 1935. They pointed out that there was nothing in the East Scarborough district but a few farms and miles of undeveloped bush land. They aired the disturbing fact that the Kingston Continue reading →