In 1837 English immigrant James Worts and his partner William Gooderham founded a distillery on the western shore of the Don River. As settlers moved further into the Canadian interior and farmed more and more wheat for export, Gooderham and Worts realized that they could make a profit distilling wheat into alcohol. Over time, others realized that they could make a fortune brewing beer in Toronto and the major players, like Gooderham and Worts began to develop parallel industries to use the by-products created during the distilling process. For example, Gooderham and Worts began to feed the left-over mash that remained after the distilling process to cattle. Soon a parallel and highly profitable series of slaughterhouses appeared nearby to process these cows. Together these mutually beneficial industries formed a vast industrial district, which, in turn, required workers. Many of the people who settled in the surrounding area initially did so to be near these jobs.

Gooderham and Worts finally ceased producing alcohol in 1990 and today there is very little industrial activity left in the area. In the last 20 years, however, developers have converted many of the former factory buildings into condos and the area is a destination for tech industries and cultural organizations.

Penina Coopersmith, Cabbagetown: The Story of a Victorian Neighbourhood (Toronto: James and Lorimer Company, 1998)

Margaret Kohn, "Toronto's Distillery District: Consumption and Nostalgia in a Post-Industrial Landscape." Globalizations Vol. 7 no. 3 (September 2010), 359-369