Colgate-Palmolive

If you were on this spot in 1917…

Animation of a figure holding a bubbling soap bar

you would have seen workers digging the foundations for a new Palmolive soap factory.

Location:

50 Colgate Avenue

Colgate – Palmolive Building

Year:

1917 (demolished 1995)

Architect:

Prack & Perrine

Made:

Soap, toothpaste, cleaning products

'The Home of Palmolive', circa 1918. — **“The Home of Palmolive”, circa 1918.**
Library and Archives Canada

**John Chang Parkette, with the condominium building at 88 Colgate Ave in the background, June 2018.**
Image by Herman Custodio

Palmolive’s expansion into Canada

Originally called the B.J. Johnson Soap Company, the American business was renamed for its best-known product, a soap made from palm and olive oils called Palmolive that debuted in 1898.

The product was so successful it allowed the company to expand into Canada and beyond.

Workers with horses laying the foundation for a factory building with other completed factories in the background. — The Palmolive Company of Canada factory under construction on Natalie Street
(now Colgate Avenue) looking northeast towards Carlaw Avenue, August 2, 1917.
Library and Archives Canada

Black and white photograph of a large brick factory building with a chimney stack at the back. Large windows. — **The east side of the expanded factory, circa 1918.**
Library and Archives Canada

Colour photograph of the Colgate-Palmolive factory on Carlaw Avenue showing almost the entirety of the south facade. A parking lot containing a billboard advertising the Lottario lottery is in the foreground. — **The factory as it appeared before demolition, looking north on Carlaw, July 1986.**
Toronto Public Library

Palmolive merged with the Peet Brothers soap company in 1926 and then with Colgate in 1928, forming Colgate-Palmolive.

Workers here made Ajax bathroom cleaner, Palmolive soap, Colgate toothpaste, and many other toiletries you might have at home.

Colgate Avenue (previously Natalie Street) was named after the company.

Living Memory

“My dad worked at Colgate-Palmolive around 1950… when he came home from work, he would go and get washed and only had to add water to his hair and he would have a full head of soap lather. Instant shampoo!!”
Linda Blakey
On Facebook

Street sign for Colgate Ave stands in front of a low brick building that has a faded paint sign over the entrance that reads 'Rolph Clark Stone.' — **Colgate Avenue street sight, with the Wrigley building**
**in the background, June 2018.**
Image by Herman Custodio

How soap was made

The process of making soap was notoriously stinky.

Neighbours often encountered noxious odours from its chimneys.

Living Memory

“They had some bad smells coming out of the [Colgate-Palmolive] factory. It didn’t smell like soap. It was very strong… it would bother your nose.”
Yvonne Nearing
who lived on Carlaw Avenue

Two workers and a man in smart clothing in front of a machine, likely a soap kettle, inside the Palmolive Co. of Canada factory on Natalie Avenue.

10 massive kettles in this factory boiled fats and oils with soda ash to create soap and glycerin.

Image caption: Workers and foreman in front of a soap kettle, circa 1920
Library and Archives Canada

The finished perfumed soap was cut into bars, wrapped and packaged on a production line staffed by women, and shipped out via a railway loading dock located inside the building.

Image caption: Palmolive soap packing line, Toronto, 1919
Toronto Public Library

Sepia photograph of a group of women of various ages on a production line wrapping and packing soap by hand. Unwrapped bars are on a conveyor belt in the middle of their table and the women are wrapping them in paper and putting them in cardboard boxes. A female supervisor is visible in the background.

The end of the factory

240 people lost their jobs when the Colgate-Palmolive factory closed in the early 1990s.

In 1995, the building was one of the few factories in this area to be demolished.

The site was redeveloped starting in 2012 and the new condo at the corner of Colgate and Carlaw is approximately the same size as the former factory.

Illustration of a figure taking a picture with a camera phone

Check it out…

Smokestacks

You will see them poking out behind buildings throughout this tour. Not in use anymore, they are part of the area’s architectural heritage.

Read the plaque

View the text transcription

Industrial Dundas-Carlaw

For much of the 20th century, Carlaw Avenue north of Queen Street was the main artery of a busy industrial area. Thousands of people, many of them local residents or streetcar commuters, worked here making a vast array of products, including candy, toys, clothing, furniture, pianos, and rubber goods.

This land was occupied by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years, and the marshes to the south were still a notable hunting and fishing territory at the time of colonization. By the 1850s, as the settlement grew, the land was used for brick making and by market gardeners to grow produce for sale in the city. The Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) was laid down through the area in the 1850s.

In 1906 the makers of Chiclets gum built the first major factory in this area, and others soon followed. The GTR installed freight tracks to the plants in 1907. Electrical, sewage, and other infrastructure was built to service the neighbourhood.

During the world wars, significantly more women entered the workforce, replacing men serving in the armed forces. The factories also supported the war effort by making items such as bullet tips and military clothing.

Starting in the 1960s, as manufacturing declined across North America, factories on Carlaw began to close or move to the suburbs near highways. Many former industrial buildings in this area were altered for small businesses or residences.