The King's Mill
For thousands of years, the Humber River served as a corridor for Aboriginal settlement and trade. In late 1793, only a few months after British officials founded the Town of York (now Toronto), the river began to be converted into a corridor for water-powered industry. Here, within sight of the remains of Aboriginal villages and a French fur-trading post, the British government constructed Toronto's first industrial building - a rough, low shed with a water-powered saw - to supply lumber for government purposes. It became known as "King's Mill".
Poorly managed and badly maintained, the first King's Mill burned in 1803. Other water-powered sawmills and gristmills (for grinding grains into flour) followed on this site. The last and grandest of them all was constructed circa 1848 as a key part of merchant William Gamble's expanding milling enterprise.
Burned in 1881, its stone ruins would become one of Toronto's most romantic landmarks, known as "the Old Mill" and a rare visible reminder in the late-20th century of the days of water power. The ruins were dismantled in 2000 and replaced by a hotel, loosely modelled after the mill and partly clad with its stones.
Plaque via Alan L. Brown's site Toronto Plaques. Full page here.