New Toronto Filtration Plant/Lakeshore Pumping Station
On this site stood a key contributor to the 20th-century prosperity of the Lakeshore community.
In 1913, the New Toronto Village Council decided to build a filtration plant to improve the community's health and promote growth. When the plant opened in 1915, it was only the second such facility in the Toronto area. Major employers like Goodyear Tire and Rubber, DuPont Fabrikoid, and Brown's Copper & Brass Rolling Mills located nearby, and New Toronto's population multiplied more than 10 times between 1911 and 1931.
The plant was expanded frequently to meet the rising demands of New Toronto, Mimico, and Long Branch. When the R.L. Clark Filtration Plant opened in 1968, the remodelled New Toronto facility became the Lakeshore Pumping Station. It supplied raw water to Goodyear and the Humber Treatment Plant until 1992. The Lakeshore Pumping Station was removed in 2000.
The gate and check valves (used for the Goodyear supply) and centrifugal pump forming part of this monument date from about 1920.
Plaque via Alan L. Brown's site Toronto Plaques. Full page here.