Clairville, Toronto

Clairville is a neighbourhood and former village in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the northwest corner of Toronto, in the former city of Etobicoke. Today Clairville is almost wholly industrial/commercial.HistoryThe town of Clairville was established in 1850 at the intersection of Albion Road and Steeles. It was built on a land owned by Jean du Petit Pont de la Haye, a French teacher at Upper Canada College. He developed the community on his estate which he named after his daughter Claire. A private street was built diagonally across northern Etobicoke as a shortcut to Albion Township through Toronto Gore Township (now part of Caledon and Brampton), with a toll at Clairville. The street was originally named Clairville but was also called the Albion Road (the current name for this street).Re-developmentA dam was built on the West Branch of the Humber River immediately west of the village and created Lake Clairville reservoir. Clairville began to disappeared / diminish after the realignment of Albion Road and then the realignment of Steeles Avenue. As a result, by the mid-1980s through traffic was by-passing the community. In the 1970s Highway 427 was built north along the western edge of the neighbourhood and in the 1990s Highway 407 was built just to the north. This combined with the existing rail lines and proximity to Pearson Airport make the area prime industrial land. Today, some of original residential homes have disappeared in the Toronto section of Clairville and replaced with warehousing and open storage / trucking uses. Many of the remaining original homes are no longer used as residences.