City of Toronto Archives

A huge online database of City of Toronto Government records and photographs. Their description page has all the details, but we've focused on indexing and geo-locating a small subset of their over 37,000 photos dating as far back as 1856. Details, from their page:

• Some of the earliest known photographs of Toronto, created in 1856 by noted photographers Armstrong, Beere and Hime
• 150,000 photographs taken by Globe and Mail photographers between 1922 and 1953...
• Nearly 26,000 former City of Toronto Works Department photographs and negatives, taken...between 1911 and 1940, to document public works projects...
• Photographs taken between 1858 and 1863 to document the Northern Railway in Toronto and other locations
• Approximately 12,000 photographs of Toronto locations and events taken by one of Canada's first photojournalists, William James, mostly between 1906 and 1939
• 2,400 photographs taken by Canada Pictures Ltd. to document the construction of the Yonge Street Subway between 1949 and 1953
• Aerial photographs of Toronto taken between 1947 and 1992

You can start your search of their huge online collection of photos on their Search the Archives' database page.

We have 1658 records from this source in our database ranging from 1827 to 1995.

(Click here to see the complete list of sources available on Wholemap.)

Return to our historic Toronto photos from today page or pick from a collection of Toronto neighbourhoods with historic photos, or see a subset of the images arranged by subject.