Canada Linseed
The factory was built in 1915 by Montreal-based Canada Linseed Oil Mills, Ltd. and processed linseed oil (also known as flaxseed oil). Linseed oil was a popular ingredient in such industrial products as oil-based paint, wood finisher, and linoleum (which derives its name from linseed) as well as livestock feed and cough syrups. Over the ensuing decades, the Canada Linseed Oil Mills buildings underwent several alterations, mostly expansions. As linseed oil became less popular (perhaps due in part to its propensity for occasional spontaneous combustion) and as Toronto moved away from a manufacturing-based economy, the factory closed in the 1960s (various sources date its closure in the range of 1965-1969).
The City of Toronto purchased the land in 2000, with the possibility of using the land to house public transit buses.The Wabash Building Society was formed in 2006, with a long-term of hope of turning these buildings into a community center to compliment an adjacent park.
