St. Leo's Parish Hall

This is the location of St. Leo's Parish Hall.

In 1813 James Stock & his family, who were originally from Chorley, Lancashire, England, settled in the Mimico area of Toronto. (I actually went to grade school with one of his descendants) James had acquired a large tract of land & a number of smaller lots as well. James built a house, known as Harwarden, a little south of this location on the SW corner of Drummond St. & Royal York Rd. In 1860 James died & passed on his home & most of his land to his son Edward who was a farmer in the area. Harwarden would survive until 1938.

Edward inherited the piece of land south of the railway, where the Parish Hall now stands & he used it as pasture land for a large herd of cattle. Edward Stock purchased a right of way as a short cut from another local farmer so he could drive the cattle to the lake each night and morning. Other people began to use the cowpath as a shortcut. It eventually became a public right-of-way and became Mimico Ave.

Edward Stock prospered and in 1886 built a large brick house named Eden Court just North of the QEW on the east side of Royal York Road on a big tract of land that he owned. That house still stands, but what an abomination it has become.

In 1895 Edward donated a portion of the cattle pasture land south of the railway in order for the community to build a Catholic Church. This location, where the Parish Hall stands, was the original location of St. Leo's Church which was constructed in 1903. In 1912 the church was enlarged as the congregation grew & in 1926 St. Leo's Catholic School was built across the street just east of the old 1858 Mimico Post Office.

After WW 2 & with immigration of many Catholic Europeans, the church would need to become bigger. They aquired the land across the street where the old post office had stood & built a new church that opened in 1953 & still stands today.

The original church was demolished & the small auditorium in the school was no longer sufficient as a meeting place for the local parishioners. So in 1960 the St. Leo's Parish Hall was built where the original church had once stood. This would serve as a meeting place for parishioners, they would hold wedding receptions, various other parties & dances & it would act as the auditorium & gymnasium on a daily basis for St. Leo's School kids for the next 20+ years. There was also a local Credit Union that operated out of the office.

In the early 1980's the school built an updated gymnasium on their own property & that probably was the start of the death of the parish hall. People wanted fancier parties or reception halls for weddings & banquets. There were a number of other events held there over the years & the local Knights of Columbus met there as well. But its use dwindled to probably only a handful of hours a week. The last time I was there was in the late 90's when attending a post funeral reception. The last time that I know it was in use was in 2005 as a meeting hall.

The Parish hall will be demolished & the property will be a big part of the future development of a 111 unit townhouse complex.

As a side note, St. Leo's parish community in Mimico has 3 active NHL players & 1 retired NHL player that all attended St. Leo's Catholic School. This small elementary school only has 260 kids enrolled. A pretty good ratio.