The neighbourhood. The workshop. What comes next.
A place changes. People get to work.
Something lasting begins.
BEFORE FRONTIER / THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
Frontier was established in 1997. The story of the place around us reaches much further back. These aerial photographs follow the same stretch of Etobicoke as fields give way to streets, homes and places to make things.
01 / 1939
Long strips of land. Scattered buildings. Roads with room on either side. The wider Queensway district was still a landscape of market gardens in the 1930s.
Look for the field boundaries. In the next view, a different pattern begins to appear.
Neighbourhood history
02 / 1954
New streets and buildings meet the remaining fields. In the years after the war, Etobicoke was changing from a rural township into an urban community.
The local shift from agricultural land to small industrial premises gathered pace from the mid-1950s.
The industrial district
03 / 1965
Industrial roofs fill the view. Around Jutland Road, smaller factories and workshops became part of a growing network of roads, rail and manufacturing.
This was the setting for a working district: practical buildings, connected to the city around them.
The industrial district
04 / 1978
By this photograph, the contrast with 1939 is striking. Streets, roofs and yards have replaced much of the open land. A manufacturing neighbourhood has taken shape.
Frontier’s chapter is still ahead. The ground around its future home is already a place of work.
Explore the aerial archiveAerial imagery: City of Toronto, 1939, 1954, 1965 and 1978. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Toronto.
A RECORD FROM 1956 / LONG BEFORE FRONTIER
There it is, in a federal manufacturing directory: 10 Jutland Road.
The 1956 record lists Dominion Aluminum Fabricating Ltd. at the address Frontier uses today. A different company, decades earlier—a small piece of the neighbourhood’s working history, preserved in print.
Read the original government record
Adapted from Statistics Canada, The Aluminum Products Industry, 1956, p. B-10 (published 1958). This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
FRONTIER’S OWN CHAPTER
From our company archiveFrontier Manufacturing Inc. was established in 1997 with six employees and a 16,000-square-foot workshop. The early company website tells the story plainly: a small team, room to work, and a business that soon grew.
THE EARLY YEARS / PRESERVED ONLINE IN 2001
The same company page describes the business three years on: a 64,000-square-foot facility and 36 skilled craftspeople. It names a design department, computerized equipment and professional finishing—bringing more of the work together under one roof.
Visit the archived company pageFROM THE EARLY COMPANY RECORD
Historical figures from the About Us page captured in April 2001. The page says “three years later”; these are not present-day capacity figures.
“The goal of this company is to meet and exceed the needs of our clients.”
FRONTIER MANUFACTURING INC. / ARCHIVED ABOUT US
FROM THE PROJECT LIST / ARCHIVED APRIL 2001
Retail counters. Places to gather. Spaces that serve the public. Frontier’s early portfolio already described work across Canada, the United States and the Caribbean.
Its contact page recorded 10 Jutland Road and a telephone number still familiar today: 416-252-4200.
The early project and contact recordsOrillia, Ontario
Belleville & Montreal
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Guelph
Mississauga Hospital administration
Examples listed in Frontier’s historical portfolio. The archive does not establish individual completion dates; these entries are not current client endorsements.
THE WORK CONTINUES
Today, large commercial projects are the core of our work. Our team of 20–30 employees is supported by an established network of subcontractors, with union or non-union installation options.
Architects and designers bring the vision. We work through the shop drawings, manufacture and installation that turn it into a finished space.
See the work & the design teamFROM 1997 / FOR WHAT COMES NEXT
New spaces. More ambitious designs. The next detail to work through together. Our history matters because of what we do with it next.
FRONTIER INC.10 JUTLAND ROAD / ETOBICOKE
This story brings together public records, City of Toronto imagery and Frontier’s own early website. The years before 1997 describe the neighbourhood, not Frontier. Historical staffing and facility figures describe the period of the archived company page.
The founding year follows Frontier Manufacturing Inc.’s archived About Us account, confirmed by Frontier. The precise move-in date at Jutland Road has not been established; its archived contact page confirms the address by 2001.
Etobicoke Historical Society — The Queensway; City of Toronto Archives — Etobicoke: A Modern Suburb. Context for the market gardens and postwar transformation.
6Place Toronto — Work, Inventory: Jutland Road. Documents incremental agricultural-to-industrial development from the mid-1950s.
City of Toronto — Web Map Services. The four views use the same geographic crop; historical surveys are not precisely aligned. Images were assembled, cropped, resized and compressed without adding or removing pictured features.
Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Toronto.
Dominion Bureau of Statistics — The Aluminum Products Industry, 1956, p. B-10, published 1958. The listing establishes an earlier manufacturing address, not a corporate relationship with Frontier or continuity of the same building. Reproduced under the Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Frontier Manufacturing Inc. — About Us, captured April 6, 2001. Reports establishment in 1997 with six employees and 16,000 square feet, then 36 craftspeople and 64,000 square feet “three years later.” The capture date is not necessarily the writing date.
Project history, captured April 8, 2001; Contact page, captured April 6, 2001. Historical project descriptions are attributed to Frontier’s own portfolio.
Present-day team and installation information supplied by Frontier. Amica Whitby photograph: Frontier project collection; project and design credits.