Sunlight Park was the first baseball park in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

. The all wood stadium was built in 1886 for the International League

International League

The International League is a minor league baseball league that operates in the eastern United States. Like the Pacific Coast League and the Mexican League, it plays at the Triple-A level, which is one step below Major League Baseball. It was so named because it had teams in both the United States...

 baseball team the Torontos (soon renamed the Toronto Maple Leafs).

It was initially known as the Toronto Baseball Grounds for the cost of $7,000. It stood south of Queen Street East, west of Broadview Avenue, near the Don River, and had seating for 2,200 spectators, including a 550-seat reserved section. It came to be known as Sunlight Park after the Lever Brothers

Lever Brothers

Lever Brothers was a British manufacturer founded in 1885 by William Hesketh Lever and his brother, James Darcy Lever . The brothers had invested in and promoted a new soap making process invented by chemist William Hough Watson, it was a huge success...

 Sunlight Soap Works was built behind the outfield fence. The stadium hosted the city’s first professional baseball championship in 1887. The team and league folded in 1890 and the stadium lasted until 1896 when the team's new owners abandoned the park for their new Hanlan's Point Stadium

Hanlan's Point Stadium

Hanlan's Point Stadium was a baseball stadium and lacrosse grounds in Toronto. It was erected in 1897 at Hanlan's Point on the Toronto Islands for the minor league Toronto Maple Leafs baseball club. It was destroyed by fire twice, in 1903, and again in 1909...

.

Today the site is a city park and street Sunlight Park Road bears witness to the past. The park is bounded by the Don Valley Parkway

Don Valley Parkway

The Don Valley Parkway is a controlled-access six-lane municipal expressway in Toronto connecting the Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto with Ontario Highway 401, the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway. North of Highway 401, it continues as Ontario Highway 404. The parkway runs through...

 and the industrial buildings of the former Lever Brothers.

See also

• Rogers Centre
  Rogers Centre
  Rogers Centre is a multi-purpose stadium, in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated next to the CN Tower, near the shores of Lake Ontario. Opened in 1989, it is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League...
  
  
• Exhibition Stadium
  Exhibition Stadium
  Canadian National Exhibition Stadium was a multi-purpose stadium, that formerly stood on the Exhibition Place grounds, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada....
  
  
• Maple Leaf Stadium
  Maple Leaf Stadium
  Maple Leaf Stadium was a baseball stadium in Toronto built in 1926 by Lol Solman for his Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team of the International League on the site of a stadium that had been built in 1907. It continued to be the home of the Leafs for 42 seasons, until the team left town following...
  
  
• Christie Pits
  Christie Pits
  Christie Pits Park, originally Willowvale Park, is a Toronto public recreational area located at 750 Bloor Street West at Christie Street, just west from the TTC Christie subway station...