Eaton Centre History: Eaton's Store, 1977 Opening, Yonge

The Toronto Eaton Centre, at Yonge and Dundas streets, grew out of Eaton’s, the department store that Timothy Eaton founded on Yonge Street in December 1869. The first phase of the shopping center opened in 1977 and the second in 1979, on land that Eaton’s had long owned in the block bounded by Yonge, Queen, Bay, and Dundas streets. Its glass-roofed galleria was designed by Eberhard Zeidler with Bregman + Hamann Architects. This article covers the history of the store, the center, and the retail street around them. It is not a store directory, and current tenants are listed on the center’s own website.

Timothy Eaton on Yonge Street, 1869 to 1884

According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Eaton moved his family to Toronto in 1869 and first opened a short-lived wholesale business on Front Street West. In December 1869 he bought a dry-goods business at 178 Yonge Street, known as Britannia House, near Queen Street. The Canadian Encyclopedia gives the purchase price as $6,500. The store was to sell at fixed prices for cash only. The Dictionary notes that Eaton was not the first Canadian merchant to do so, but the policy set his store apart from shops that bargained and sold on credit.

After buying property at 190 to 196 Yonge Street in 1882, Eaton opened a new three-story store there on August 22, 1883. In 1884 he began a mail-order service built on a printed catalog, which the Canadian Encyclopedia says ran to 32 pages in its first edition. The catalog carried the fixed-price, cash approach to customers across the country. Timothy Eaton died in Toronto on January 31, 1907.

The rivalry with Simpson’s

Eaton’s main competitor stood across Queen Street. Secondary sources, including a Toronto Public Library blog and local history sites, say Robert Simpson opened a dry-goods store on Yonge Street north of Queen in 1872 and moved to the corner of Queen and Yonge in 1881. One source places that corner on the southeast and others on the southwest, and the southwest is better supported. A new Simpson’s building opened in 1896. The store later became the Hudson’s Bay Queen Street store, and the Simpson’s name disappeared from the street in 1991. For about a century the two stores made the Queen and Yonge intersection the center of Toronto’s department store trade.

Planning the Eaton Centre

By the 1960s Eaton’s owned most of the land between Yonge, Queen, Bay, and Dundas streets. In the middle of that decade it proposed a large office and shopping complex that would have required demolishing Old City Hall and the Church of the Holy Trinity. Public opposition led the company to pause the plan in 1967. It was revived in 1971 with Old City Hall preserved, and later revisions also saved the church. These changes moved the new Eaton’s store north toward Dundas Street, placed Simpson’s at the south end of the block, reduced the office component, and concentrated the complex on the Yonge Street frontage. These planning details come from a detailed secondary account, and the City of Toronto Archives holds the planning records for anyone who needs documents.

Design and opening

Zeidler and Bregman + Hamann designed a vaulted galleria with a glass ceiling, modelled on the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan. Its interior was widely copied in later North American shopping centers. The first phase, which included the new Eaton’s store, opened in 1977. The old Eaton’s store at Yonge and Queen was then demolished and the south half of the center opened in its place in 1979, along with a Cineplex cinema complex. Because Metropolitan Toronto asked for road widening, the Yonge Street side was set back, which weakened its presence on the street. A redesign in the early 2000s brought storefronts closer to the sidewalk.

Inside hangs Michael Snow’s work Flight Stop, a flock of fibreglass geese. When the center added red ribbons to the geese for Christmas without the artist’s consent, Snow sued, and the court held that the ribbons infringed his moral rights. The ribbons were removed. The case remains a standard reference in Canadian copyright teaching.

Timeline

December 1869: Timothy Eaton buys Britannia House at 178 Yonge Street.
August 22, 1883: Eaton opens a new store at 190 to 196 Yonge Street.
1884: first Eaton’s mail-order catalog.
1967: plans for a large complex are paused after opposition to demolishing Old City Hall and Holy Trinity.
1971: a revised plan that keeps Old City Hall is revived.
1977: first phase of the Eaton Centre, with the new Eaton’s store, opens.
1979: the south half opens where the old Eaton’s store stood.
1999: Eaton’s goes bankrupt and its assets are bought by Sears Canada.
2014: Hudson’s Bay announces the sale of its Queen Street complex to Cadillac Fairview and a lease-back.

After Eaton’s

The T. Eaton Company sought creditor protection in 1997 and declared bankruptcy in 1999. Sears Canada bought its assets and tried to relaunch the name, and the relaunched Eaton’s stores closed in 2002. Sources differ slightly on the sequence of the 1997 and 1999 events, and the Canadian Encyclopedia and Carleton University’s collection records both describe the 1999 bankruptcy. The former Eaton’s store in the center then carried the Sears name. Names of the center also changed: it opened as The Eaton Centre, became the Toronto Eaton Centre in the early 1990s, and received a “CF” prefix from owner Cadillac Fairview in 2015. The Hudson’s Bay store, the old Simpson’s, closed in June 2025 after its parent company’s bankruptcy, according to the encyclopedia account used here.

Shopping beyond Yonge and Queen

Toronto’s shopping districts were never limited to one corner. Specialty streets grew around immigrant communities and local trades, and the histories of Kensington Market, Yorkville, and the Distillery District are each covered in their own articles. Underground and street-level routes beside the Eaton Centre connect to the PATH network.

Frequently asked questions

When did the Eaton Centre open?

The first phase opened in 1977 and the south half in 1979. Later redesigns and renamings changed its look and its official name but not its location.

Who designed the Eaton Centre?

Eberhard Zeidler designed it together with Bregman + Hamann Architects. Zeidler’s galleria was modelled on the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan.

Where was the first Eaton’s store?

Timothy Eaton bought a dry-goods store at 178 Yonge Street in December 1869. Secondary accounts put that site at the south end of the present center, which the Dictionary of Canadian Biography does not state in those words.

Are store hours and tenants listed here?

No. Hours, stores, and services change often. The official website of the Toronto Eaton Centre is the place to check them.

Last verified: October 2026

Sources

Dictionary of Canadian Biography, “Eaton, Timothy”
The Canadian Encyclopedia, articles on Eaton’s (including the Maclean’s feature “Eaton’s: A Dynasty in Decline”) and “Eaton’s Goes Bankrupt”
Toronto Public Library blog, “Famous Retail Stores from Toronto’s Past”
Carleton University, Social Science collection record for Eaton’s department store
Encyclopedia account of the Toronto Eaton Centre (planning, design, and naming details; secondary)

Cite this page

APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 23). The Eaton Centre and Toronto’s Historic Shopping Streets. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/complete-toronto-eaton-centre-directory-find-all-the-stores-and-services-you-need

MLA: “The Eaton Centre and Toronto’s Historic Shopping Streets.” History of Toronto, 23 Oct. 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/complete-toronto-eaton-centre-directory-find-all-the-stores-and-services-you-need. Accessed .

Chicago: History of Toronto. “The Eaton Centre and Toronto’s Historic Shopping Streets.” Last modified October 23, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/complete-toronto-eaton-centre-directory-find-all-the-stores-and-services-you-need.

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