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Goad's Plans and Atlases of Toronto

  • Writer: Peter J. Marshall
    Peter J. Marshall
  • Jun 1
  • 17 min read

Updated: 3 minutes ago

THE HOGTOWN GUIDE TO GOAD'S MAPS

ABOUT  | HISTORY  | FIRE INSURANCE PLANS  | CITY ATLASES  | COLLECTIONS | TORONTO MAPS



The scope of fire insurance plans published for Toronto rivals that of the country’s smaller provinces thanks to the city’s near constant expansion during its first 135 years, resulting in a total of nearly two dozen volumes published and revised at random intervals over nine decades. Combine that output with the 14 atlas editions issued over 35 years and it can be confusing for property researchers to know where to start. The following Toronto-specific information supplements the general background provided in the rest of this Guide to help readers determine which plan and atlas editions apply to a given property and where they can be found today.


History


Fire Insurance Plan Timeline


 Final boundaries of Toronto volumes in 1973. Coverage area of the 1880 first edition of volume 1 shown in solid red.


As with other large urban centres, Charles Goad's Toronto fire insurance plan (singular) was divided into multiple parts he termed volumes. This term typically denotes a single component of a collective body of work wherein updates consist of issuing new versions of all components. The practice of most archives and libraries to catalogue their city plans chronologically rather than by volume implies that this traditional definition applies to these maps as well. But that isn't the case.

These volumes should not be viewed as components of a comprehensive city plan, but as a loose collection of related yet independent neighbourhood plans.

The publication and revision of Toronto insurance plan volumes was driven not by the growth of the municipality as a whole but by the growth of specific sections and the addition of sections as the city annexed neighbouring communities. As a result, the publication of the first and final “volumes” for Toronto and its environs was separated by a span of nearly a century, with some early editions being updated dozens of times before the first appearance of later ones. Furthermore, the coverage of many editions extended beyond the city limits and into adjacent townships. Therefore, these volumes should not be viewed as components of a comprehensive city plan, but as a loose collection of related yet independent neighbourhood plans. This distinction becomes apparent when tracing the rollout of the 22 volumes over 93 years.


Defining “Toronto”


Click for full map of Toronto annexations between 1834 and 1967.


Toronto began as a territory of slightly less than 6,200 acres when the former town of York was renamed in 1834. Then, beginning in 1883, the city gradually annexed numerous adjacent communities from the surrounding Township of York, turning former suburbs such as Parkdale, Yorkville and Toronto Junction into neighbourhoods within the growing metropolis. This piecemeal expansion came to an end with the establishment of the 1967 city boundaries that stretched from Scarborough to Etobicoke and from the lake to North York and which remained in place until 1998. In that year, the province amalgamated the city with the remnants of York Township and the former boroughs of Etobicoke and Scarborough to create the current megacity of Toronto. Ever since then, the 1967-1998 iteration of the city is commonly identified as the “former City of Toronto”.


Volumes 1 & 2

The original Goad's insurance plan volume for Toronto, issued in 1880.


When Charles Goad published his first Toronto volume in 1880, the city was bounded by the Don River on the east, Dufferin Street to the west and Bloor Street at its north end, with a panhandle between the Lake Ontario and Queen Street East extending to the Beach(es). Within this area, the original edition of Volume 1 covered part of what Goad termed the “Central District” of the city, stretching north to Bloor Street, east to Cherry Street and west to Strachan Avenue. It is the oldest surviving insurance plan of city after the 1858 Atlas of the City of Toronto[1].


Two years later, Goad issued the first edition of volume 2 covering the areas immediately east and west of the first volume. Although no copies of this edition remain, there are copies of a revised version from 1889 which reveal the original's coverage area and its role as a companion to a revised volume 1 [2]. The Toronto Reference Library has a complete copy of the combined 1889 revision that includes the introductory pages but the non-sequential order that those pages appear online[3] makes it very difficult to distinguish which sheets belong to the 1882 original and which to the 1889 revision. Without this distinction, the content of those sheets appears contradictory. The following clarifications will help researchers effectively utilize this rare Victorian-era volume.


Combined Key Plan


The combined key plan for volumes 1 and 2 (above) doesn’t distinguish between the areas covered by each volume so I’ve identified the boundaries here. Note that the sheets bordered by the dashed line were added to volume 2 in its 1889 revision and so would not have been part of the original edition.

A notable difference between the two volumes is the scale used for the corresponding sheets: the surveys in volume 1 characterized by the small, coloured boxes are drawn at a 50-foot scale while the ones represented by the larger coloured boxes that make up the majority of volume 2 are drawn to a 100-foot scale.


Both volumes provide clear evidence of Goad’s lack of a long-term vision for mapping the growing city. The boundaries of volume 1 are a patchwork of secondary streets which give it a confusing irregular shape compared to later volumes that employed major roadways, railway lines and rivers as more streamlined volume borders. In a similar vein, the coverage area of volume 2 is tacked on to either side of volume 1 rather than encompassing its own distinct territory. This absence of foresight lead to volume 2 having to be rezoned just a few years later when additional volumes were added to the collection.


Volume 1 Contents (1880 revised to 1889)


The first 54 sheets of this combined volume consist of the original volume 1 sheets with subsequent revision slips pasted onto them:

  • Sheet 1 (left): Fire Hydrant Pressures. Dated 1880 with a later revision slip indicating plan’s revision dates.

  • Sheets 2 & 3 (middle): Key plan for volume 1 with Fire Limits / Building Districts inset. Dated 1880 with 1883 update to the inset.

  • Sheets 4-54 (sample at right): Block plans. Original 1880 volume 1 surveys dated June 1880 with revision slips added in March 1882 (when the combined volume was first issued), November 1883, August 1885, January 1886 and August 1889.


There does not appear to have been a street index issued with the original volume 1, unlike all subsequent editions.


Volume 2 Contents (1882 revised to 1889)

The remaining sheets in the combined volume make up the first edition of volume 2 with subsequent revision slips affixed to them:

  • Sheet 55 (top left): Index to Street & Specials for Volumes 1 & 2. Dated March 1882 with blue slip indicating it was replaced in 1889 due to extra block plans for volume 2 and Riverside being added that year.

  • Sheets 56 & 57 (top middle): Key Plan for Combined Volumes 1 & 2. Dated 1882. This key plan superseded the original Volume 1 key plan on sheets 2 & 3. The blue revision slip indicates that:

    • volume 1 consists of sheets 4-54 which have been revised to August 1889

    • volume 2 consists of sheets 58-90 which have either been revised to September 1889 or reprinted in December 1889

    • eight more sheets numbered 122 and up are to be added December 1889 as shown in the the key plan

  • Sheets 58-90 (sample at top right): mix of March 1882 original block surveys with revision stickers plus reprints dated December 1889.

  • Sheets 122, 126, 130, 134, 150, 154, 158 & 162 (sample at bottom left): new 100-foot scale block surveys dated November 1889 with notes that they will each eventually be divided into four sheets drawn at the standard 50-foot scale.

  • Unnumbered sheet (bottom right): Street Index to Volumes 1, 2 and Riverside dated December 1889. This index superseded the original one on sheet 55


Riverside

This two-page plan surveying a portion of the future Riverdale is dated December 1889 and uses a 100-foot scale. Although it has its own key plan, its coverage area is incorporated into the combined volume’s 1889 street index and its sheet numbers are referenced by adjoining sheets in volume 2 indicating that it was intended to be part of combined volume’s 1889 update. This is the first and only edition of this plan as its coverage area became part of volume 3 which was issued in the following decade.


West Toronto Junction

A plan of West Toronto Junction is included in the only online copy of the combined volume 1 and 2 [4], and the Catalogue of Canadian Fire Insurance Plans also states that this plan was included in the 1889 revision of volume 2. However, the town's streets are not included in the combined street index unlike the Riverside plan. Furthermore, the plan's September 1892 revision date (from a June 1889 original) is three years later than the latest updates indicated in the blue slips in the combined volume. It’s therefore possible that its inclusion in this copy was a unique circumstance.


Sheets 1 and 2 from the West Toronto Junction plan with a mix of 50-foot and 100-foot scales.


Volumes 3-6

Key map to the city from the 1897 edition of Volume 6. Contemporary city limits are indicated in red.


The Catalogue of Canadian Fire Insurance Plans lists only volumes 1, 2 and 6 as being published prior to 1900. However, after obtaining a reproduction of the 1897 edition of volume 6 from the British Library I discovered a key map for the city which showed there were six volumes in existence at that time and that they used sequential sheet numbering. I’ve managed to determine the approximate publication dates of the lost first editions based on clues in other volumes.

Vol.

Edition

Sheet No’s

Date

Notes

1

2nd ed.

1-81

ca. 1890s

Sometime after volume 1’s 1889 revision and before this 1897 key plan, that volume’s coverage area was expanded to absorb the south part of the original volume 2.

2

2nd ed.

82-177

ca. 1890s

At the same time as volume 1 was overhauled, the south portion of the original volume 2 was transferred to volume 1 while the east portion became part of volume 3 and the remainder was expanded to a new 50-foot scale version of volume 2.

3

1st ed.

178-261

ca. 1890s

Sometime after the 1889 revision of volume 2, its east portion along with the Riverdale plan were reclassified as volume 3. The Toronto Islands were also included in this volume after being surveyed by Goad for the first time.

4

1st ed.

262-340

ca. 1890

This volume can be dated to soon after 1889 because its sheet numbers are referenced in the adjacent sheets in the 1889 revision of volume 2. Sheet numbers above 323 were reserved for future editions which would expand west of High Park to the Etobicoke border.

5

1st ed.

342-413

ca. 1890

This can be dated to soon after 1889 for the same reasons as volume 4. It is likely the 1890 edition which became the basis of a 1904 revision, copies of which still exist. Sheets 414-419 were added in that revision, filling in part of a deliberate numbering gap between volumes 5 and 6.

6

1st ed.

421-442

1897

This edition still exists and is dated 1897 making it the third of the three surviving Victorian-era Toronto volumes.

The same city key plan also includes insurance plans for the villageof East Toronto and the town of West Toronto Junction. These would be the 1897 East Toronto plan (which references the adjacent Toronto volume 6) and the 1889 Junction plan mentioned above in the description of the combined volume 1 and 2 from that year.


Volumes 7-9


Following Goad’s death in 1910, the Chas. E. Goad Company issued the first edition of volume 7 in 1912 while the firm was under contract to the Canadian Fire Underwriters’ Association. The CFUA introduced a more regimented process that included a regular revision schedule for Canadian plans in general and the introduction of volume-based centennial sheet numbering for new Toronto surveys in particular[5].


The first editions of volumes 8 and 9 followed in 1916, with the latter incorporating the old East Toronto plan.


Volumes 10-22


The volumes issued by the Goad Company had extended the range of the Toronto plan slightly beyond the city boundaries and the CFUA’s heir, the Underwriters’ Survey Bureau, expanded this initiative, dividing up all of Scarborough, Etobicoke, North York, York and East York into new volumes with pre-assigned numbers. The new coverage areas had more regular geometric shapes as their boundaries were based on major roads, railways and rivers. The majority of these first editions also covered much larger areas than earlier volumes with the intention of surveying only the most developed part of the territory at first then increasing coverage in subsequent editions as warranted. As a result, the volume boundaries would remain fixed rather than expanding with each new edition.


Curiously, the volumes were not released in numerical order but by the order of their coverage area’s development. Thus, volumes 15-16 covering central and east Etobicoke were released first in 1935, volumes 12-14 covering the west end and south Etobicoke were issued in 1937 (incorporating the former independent plans for Toronto Junction and Mimico), volumes 17-18 were originally published in 1946, volume 19 – an anomaly covering the Port Credit area in what is now Mississauga – in 1952, and volume 20 in 1955. It was only in 1959 that volumes 10 and 11 – the lowest numbers in the USB’s expansion – were finally published.


The Canadian Underwriters’ Association succeeded the USB in 1965 and issued volumes 21 and 22 in 1969 and 1973 respectively before ending the publication of fire insurance plans in Canada.


Atlas Timeline


Unlike Toronto insurance plans, the first two editions of Toronto atlases required only a single volume to cover almost the entire former city. This was possible because the atlases utilized scales as small as 1,000 feet to the inch for the outlying areas in which buildings were depicted as little more than black dots. As the city became more developed, the scale employed for suburbs and annexed villages became larger which necessitated more pages to cover the same territory. Consequently, the third and final edition in 1910 required the atlas to be divided into three separate volumes.


Because the atlases ceased publishing after a 1923-24 revision of the 1910 editions, their coverage area did not expand much beyond the former city unlike insurance plans which went on to cover most of Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York prior to being discontinued in the 1970s.

The following key plans from each edition show the city boundaries at time of publication and indicate the different scales used to cover the city versus the outlying suburbs.


1884 atlas key plan composite with 1883 city limits outlined in red and final city limits outlined in black.


In the original 1884 edition there are four key plans found on plates 1, 36, 37 and 38 which have been composited into a single map above. The red outlines and red numbers represent the plates in the atlas:

  • the smallest plates are drawn at a scale of 100 feet to 1 inch

  • the medium-sized plates at drawn at 200 feet to 1 inch

  • the largest plates just outside the city limits use a 300-foot scale


Regions beyond this were not depicted on separate plates, appearing only on these 1,000-foot scale key plans. Coloured zones represent city wards as of 1883 when Goad completed his surveys. These city boundaries became outdated just two months after the atlas’ January 1884 publication when Toronto annexed Brockton and Riverdale necessitating the addition of two more wards. Note that although the Toronto Islands are not shown on these key plans, they can be found on plate 30 in the atlas.

1890 atlas key plan composite with period city limits outlined in red and final city limits outlined in black.


The second edition released in 1890 contained key plans on plates 1, 48, 49 and 50. A larger scale was employed for the former outlying areas that had now been annexed by the city, as well for as adjacent suburbs. Coloured shading was now used to represent the boundaries of the atlas plates rather than the city wards (like in fire insurance plan key maps), while the Toronto Islands were once again found on plate 30.


1910 atlas key plans with period city limits outlined in red and final city limits in black.


By the time of the 1910 third edition, the city and most of the suburbs had been developed to the point where they had to be drawn to a larger scale than previously which meant there were now too many plates to fit in a single volume. Consequently, the core of the original 1884 edition became volume 1 while volumes 2 and 3 covered the former suburbs and even spilled into neighbouring townships of Etobicoke, East York, and York. Each of the new volumes contained their own two-page key plans.


Plates in the “congested part of the city” were drawn at 100 feet to the inch while the remainder of the atlas used a 200-foot scale except for four plates that covered the outlying areas of volume 2 which were 300 feet to the inch.


Evolving Street Names & Numbers


Excerpt from 1889 volume 1 & 2 showing revised street numbers.


Don’t be surprised if you locate your century-old home in a plan or atlas only to find it labelled with a different house number and/or street name than it currently has.


Just as Toronto’s borders were subject to change in its early years, so were its street names. A primary reason was the relabeling of streets in newly annexed communities which duplicated street names already in use within the city. Another common factor was the linking of two aligned streets previously separated by a stretch of undeveloped land. Once the streets were connected it no longer made sense to treat them as separate roads and so one would typically assume the name of the other. Goad’s plans and atlases did not always reflect these name changes as soon as they occurred so they should not be relied upon for accurate dating. Instead, see Wayne Reeve’s comprehensive database of Toronto street name changes.


In a similar fashion, street numbers had to be adjusted occasionally during Toronto’s early years as sparsely populated blocks filled up with buildings or aforementioned gaps between streets were eliminated. 1889 saw a particularly extensive renumbering initiative across the city which was captured in the insurance plan’s combined volume 1 and 2 from that year that indicates the previous and new numbers for all affected buildings.



Locating a Property


Fire Insurance Plans

Goad Era Editions (1876-1917)

U of T's geospatial collection of plan volumes. Overlapping areas reflect changing boundaries.


Because the boundaries of Toronto volumes were continually evolving during the Goad era it’s not possible to strictly define these editions by their geographical coverage. Fortunately, though, the University of Toronto has plotted their collection of volumes from this period on a geospatial map. This interface allows users to simply type in an address to discover which editions of which volumes apply to that address. They can then view the applicable sheets from those surveys or seek them out in other collections for editions that the university provides only as black and white reproductions.


Post-Goad Editions (1918-1973)


Final boundaries of volumes as of 1973.


For editions later than 1916, use the map above to determine which volume may include your property then download that volume's index from the dropdown list below.

Volume Indexes

The volume indexes contain key plans for each surviving edition as well as for plans of independent towns that preceded it. These will confirm whether a given edition includes your property as a volume’s early coverage area usually differs from the final one depicted in the map. Furthermore, volumes covering the former North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke surveyed only a small portion of the area assigned to them. Once you've determined which editions apply to your property you're ready to track down a copy of those editions using the tips in COLLECTIONS below.


City Atlases


U of T's geospatial collection of city atlases, incorrectly named "Fire Insurance Atlases".


All editions of the Toronto atlases are available online in a geospatial map provided by the University of Toronto that allows users to type in an address and quickly discover which plates of which editions pertain to that location.


Collections


Fire Insurance Plans


Toronto is fortunate to have half a dozen institutions with substantial repositories of fire insurance plan volumes for the city. While the online versions are naturally the easiest to access, they represent only the tip of the iceberg for a researcher willing to put in a little legwork.


Digitized Copies

The Toronto Public Library's finding aid for Toronto fire insurance plans and city atlases, with the latter incorrectly labelled as "fire insurance atlases".


Library and Archive Collections

The Toronto Public Library offers a handy finding aid for digitized Toronto insurance plans. Just remember that only out-of-copyright editions have been digitized.


This guide consists of online collections from five sources:


Be aware of the following errors in the finding aid which may cause some confusion:

  • incorrect classification of the 1880 volume 1 plan as an atlas

  • incorrect dating of the 1889 combined volume 1 & 2 as 1892 (due to a similar dating error by the linked source)

  • incorrect dating of a 1917 revision of volume 1 as 1909 (due to a similar dating error by the linked sources)

  • incorrect dating of a 1914 revision of volume 2 as 1910

  • incorrect labelling of the 1903 Toronto Junction plan as Toronto volume 12


Hogtown House Histories Collection

There are nine editions of Toronto plans that are held exclusively by the British Museum and I have obtained colour reproductions of each. I have also commissioned photos of some early volume revisions not available in colour from Toronto sources. These plans are available in a separate Hogtown Fire Insurance Plan Collection post.


Hardcopies

Toronto plans at the University of Western Ontario.

If you’re looking for colour copies of editions that are still claimed to be in copyright (i.e. less than 90 years old), then you’ll have to rely on hardcopies. The Canadian Catalogue of Fire Insurance Plans lists which original Toronto volumes are held by which institutions, although I have found it to contain numerous errors and omissions, many of which are corrected in the Volume Indexes above. Copies of this publication are available for viewing at the Toronto Archives and the Toronto Reference Library.


Within the city, hardcopy plan collections are held by Toronto Archives, Toronto Reference Library Special Collections Centre, University of Toronto Map & Data Library, University of Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, York University Archives and Archives of Ontario. Outside of the city, the University of Western Ontario Archives and Library and Archives Canada possess the most extensive repositories of Toronto plans.


Microform Copies

The Toronto Archives' hardcopy volumes are not available to the public so if you don't want to pay for professional scans of editions not posted online then you'll need to settle for their black and white microfilm versions. (Ignore the fact that the reels are all mislabelled as atlases.)


At the Toronto Reference Library, the Humanities and Social Sciences department holds copies of microfiche provided by Library and Archives Canada. Unfortunately, each fiche holds only one full-size plan sheet (as shown here) which means a microfilm scanner can only view a quarter of the page at a time making this antiquated medium even more awkward to use. The library’s index of its microform plan collection is available here.


Atlases


Toronto atlases are out of copyright and are therefore all available in digital colour. See the Toronto Public Library index of digitized atlases for links to multiple institutions that have posted their collections online.


Notes


HISTORY

[1] There was an earlier fire insurance plan published by Goad’s American predecessor D. A. Sanborn in 1875 but no copies are known to exist.

[2] The 1889 revision has numerous indications that the two volumes were intended to be paired: the blue revision slip pasted onto sheet 1 of volume 1 indicates revision dates for both volumes, the blue slip on sheet 56 of volume 2 was specifically titled “Vols. I & II”, and the key plan on sheets 56 & 57 includes sheets for both volumes. Separate copy numbers handwritten on the Toronto However, the Toronto Reference Library’s copy of volume 1 (sheet 1) and volume 2 (sheet 57) indicate that the two parts were published separately.

[3] The library's copy is posted on their own web site and on the blog “Goad’s Atlas of the City of Toronto”.

[4] The copy posted by the Toronto Public Library is the same copy as posted by the UofT Map and Data Library as evidenced by the same copy number (32) handwritten on sheet 1.

[5] When the CFUA's successor the Underwriters' Survey Bureau introduced their smaller plan format in 1952 it retroactively applied the centennial sheet numbering system to the new versions of volumes 4 through 6 as well. The contents of volumes 2 through 5 were never renumbered because no editions were published after the new format was introduced.


COLLECTIONS

[6] Blogger Nathan Ng posted this resource in 2012 in response to the cumbersome interfaces used by the Toronto Archives and Toronto Public Library at the time and it revolutionized access to early Toronto plans and atlases.


Illustration Credits


PAGE HEADER

  • title page of Toronto fire insurance plan: Peter Marshall


HISTORY


COLLECTIONS

  • University of Western Ontario collection: Peter Marshall

  • Toronto Reference Library microfiche: Peter Marshall

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