Liberty Village, the district south of King Street West and west of Strachan Avenue, took shape on land once held by two provincial prisons. The Toronto Central Prison opened there in 1873 and was abandoned in 1915, and the Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Women stood nearby from 1878 or 1880 until 1969, depending on the source. Railway lines and cheap land then drew factories, among them John Inglis and Company in 1884 and Massey-Harris in 1891.
The area is now known for condominiums, but its nineteenth-century story is one of institutions and industry pushed to the edge of the city. Dates for the reformatory differ between sources, and the origin of the district’s name rests on a single local account.
Rails and a city edge
The Liberty Village Business Improvement Area (BIA) says in its history page that railway lines of the Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway and the Great Western Railway, laid in the 1850s, separated the area from the rest of the city and turned it away from residential plans. The wider story of those companies is told in the article on railways in 19th-century Toronto.
The Toronto Central Prison, 1873 to 1915
Heritage Toronto places the Central Prison at the corner of Strachan Avenue and King Street West and gives its years of operation as 1873 to 1915. It held mostly male convicts, around 350 at a time, and relied on their labor. Its shops included a woollen mill, tailor shop, shoe shop, machine shop, blacksmith, and paint shop. The centre block held the guards, administration, a library, and a dispensary, and the cells stood in north and south wings of four tiers each. Heritage Toronto describes the prison as particularly known for its brutality. By 1915 it had been abandoned amid controversy over its practices.
One building survives. ACO Toronto, the Toronto branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario, lists a “Central Prison Remnant” at 20 Strachan Avenue, completed in 1877 and originally a Roman Catholic chapel attached to the prison. Its record says the building appears in the City of Toronto’s inventory of heritage properties and is now abandoned. Heritage Toronto also names the paint shop wall, built into the Liberty Storage Warehouse, as one of the few remnants. Ontario Heritage Trust register notices for the chapel exist only as scanned documents that could not be read for this article, so its designation details are not given here.
The Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Women
Overcrowding at women’s institutions sometimes sent women to the men’s Central Prison, and Heritage Toronto says this prompted the idea of a separate women’s prison, which became the Mercer Reformatory. It describes it as Canada’s first women’s prison, built on the ground where Lamport Stadium now stands. Ontario’s Inspector of Prisons from 1868 to 1882, J.W. Langmuir, proposed a women-only reformatory in Toronto. The red-brick Gothic Revival building was designed by Kivas Tully, who also designed the Central Prison, and it was built with the labor of male inmates.
The opening year is disputed. The Liberty Village BIA gives 1878. The Oxford County Archives, in a blog entry on female prisoners and the reformatory, says it opened in 1880 on King Street West. Neither source cites a statute or a record of the opening day. The Oxford County Archives lists the inmates as aged over 16, with sentences from 30 days to two years, for offenses such as vagrancy, drunkenness, foul language, larceny, prostitution, and having a child out of wedlock. Heritage Toronto adds that hardly any women were held for violent crimes, that most were punished for public moral offenses, and that punishments included isolation and abuse by guards. The reformatory closed in 1969 after a grand jury investigation, its remaining inmates went to the Vanier Centre for Women in Brampton, and the building was demolished the same year.
Factories arrive
| Year | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1850s | Railways cut the area off from the city | Liberty Village BIA |
| 1873 | Toronto Central Prison opens | Heritage Toronto; BIA |
| 1877 | Prison chapel completed | ACO Toronto |
| 1878 or 1880 | Mercer Reformatory opens | BIA (1878); Oxford County Archives (1880) |
| 1884 | John Inglis and Company builds a factory for boilers and heavy machinery | BIA |
| 1891 | Massey-Harris opens a plant for agricultural equipment | BIA |
| 1899 to 1920 | Toronto Carpet Factory operates | BIA |
| 1915 | Central Prison closes | Heritage Toronto; BIA |
The BIA lists other firms that settled later, including makers of baking powder, pumps, paper boxes, and billiard tables. After the prison closed, Heritage Toronto says the A.R. Williams Company acquired part of the paint shop grounds, and some buildings became factories that made Bren machine guns in the Second World War. About 17,800 people worked at that plant. The BIA records that Inglis, bought by Whirlpool in 1985, stopped operating in 1991. The war years are covered in the article on Toronto in the Second World War.
Where the name Liberty comes from
The BIA says the district takes its name from Liberty Street, described as the first road that freed convicts would walk upon release. This is the only account found, and it is a local business association’s page rather than an archive record. No source consulted dates the street name.
Frequently asked questions
When did the Toronto Central Prison open and close?
It opened in 1873 and was abandoned in 1915, according to Heritage Toronto.
Is any of the prison still standing?
A chapel dated 1877 and part of the paint shop wall survive, according to ACO Toronto and Heritage Toronto.
When did the Mercer Reformatory open?
Sources differ: 1878 according to the Liberty Village BIA, 1880 according to the Oxford County Archives. It closed in 1969.
Why is it called Liberty Village?
According to the Liberty Village BIA, after Liberty Street, the road freed convicts walked on release.
Related reading
- An overview of Toronto’s history
- Railways in 19th-century Toronto
- Parkdale, the neighbor to the west
- Toronto in the Second World War
- How Toronto’s districts grew
Last verified: October 2026
Sources
- Heritage Toronto, “Central Prison History,” Bad Girls Map
- Heritage Toronto, “Mercer’s Reformatory History,” Bad Girls Map
- Liberty Village BIA, “History of Liberty Village”
- Oxford County Archives, “Female Prisoners and the Mercer Reformatory”
- ACO Toronto, building record for the Central Prison Remnant, 20 Strachan Avenue
Cite this page
APA: History of Toronto. (2026, October 25). Liberty Village: Central Prison, Reformatory, and Factories. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/liberty-village-history
MLA: “Liberty Village: Central Prison, Reformatory, and Factories.” History of Toronto, 25 Oct. 2026, https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/liberty-village-history. Accessed .
Chicago: History of Toronto. “Liberty Village: Central Prison, Reformatory, and Factories.” Last modified October 25, 2026. https://historyoftoronto.ca/blog/liberty-village-history.
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