Ontario Stock Yards
After the Union Stockyards relocated from downtown to the southwest corner of St. Clair and Keele, it quickly became one of North America's largest and busiest stockyards and the hub for many meat-related enterprises, which contributed millions of dollars to the economy for 91 years. Traffic on St. Clair Ave. was sometimes disrupted for five to ten minutes at a time as livestock were lead by a Judas cow or goat from the stockyards across the street to the packinghouses.
Working in a packinghouse was not easy. The kill floor, where carcasses were dressed out after slaughter, was a male domain in which each worker had a precisely delineated task in the physically strenuous process of disassembly. Female employees worked on packing lines for processed meats, such as sausages and bacon, but they too faced heavy lifting, harsh work environments and a fifty-six hour work week until 1942.
In 1944, the Government of Ontario purchased the Union Stock Yards from American interests and renamed it the Ontario Stock Yards. The Ontario Stock Yards became the only government owned public stockyards in Canada.
Plaque via Alan L. Brown's site Toronto Plaques. Full page here.