Heritage Toronto Plaques: Where to Find the City's Stories

You have walked past one today. A small sign on a wall, a post in a park, a few lines about someone who stood on that exact spot long before you.

What are Heritage Toronto plaques?

Heritage Toronto’s plaques educate and enlighten the public about the important people, places and events from Toronto’s past. The plaque program started in 1969. Heritage Toronto’s 2025 report counts more than 950 plaques on city streets, in parks and dotted throughout neighbourhoods. The team produced 45 new plaques in 2025 and installed 38 across the city.

Two types are worth knowing. A Historical Plaque tells the story of a person, place or event, with interpretive text and colour images. Century House plaques are address markers that highlight Toronto’s 100-year-old homes.

Is there a map of Heritage Toronto plaques?

Heritage Toronto’s 2025 report describes a site, in the works with a web developer, that will let you explore the plaques through a dynamic map, with a launch targeted for Fall 2026. As of October 20, 2026, we could not find that map live: the Explore, Programs, Plaques and News & Reports pages on heritagetoronto.org did not link to it. Check heritagetoronto.org before you head out, and use the five stops below until the map arrives.

Which plaques should you find first?

This is our pick, not an official route. The first two stops are a short stroll apart in the St. Lawrence area. The other three are a day out each.

1

Berczy Park shoreline plaques

St. LawrenceOfficial site Share

Heritage Toronto’s Shoreline Splash event on July 11, 2026 included a noon double unveiling at Berczy Park, 35 Wellington Street East, of two new plaques about the natural shoreline and the archaeological artefacts found there. Stand in the park and imagine the lake much closer than it is now.

2

Chief Wabakinine plaque

St. LawrenceOfficial site Share

The plaque is near St. Lawrence Market at 11 Front Street East. Chief Wabakinine, who died in 1796, was a warrior and the Head Chief of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. It pairs well with our history of St. Lawrence Market, which covers the block around it.

3

Conrad the Raccoon plaque

DowntownOfficial site Share

Heritage Toronto’s page points visitors to the official plaque at 819 Yonge Street and calls Conrad Toronto’s most beloved trash panda. It is one of the 2025 plaques and speaks to urban wildlife’s role in city life. This is the one that makes people smile, and our pick for the walker who thinks history is only for statues.

4

Guild Park Greek Theatre plaque

GuildwoodOfficial site Share

This plaque marks the outdoor stage in Guild Park, along the Scarborough Bluffs, built from salvaged marble columns and arches from the historic Bank of Toronto building. Pair the visit with our Guild Park and Gardens guide.

5

York Mills Baptist Church and Cemetery plaque

North YorkOfficial site Share

A 2025 plaque commemorates the York Mills Baptist Church and Cemetery, a once overgrown, now restored, hidden cemetery. It is a quiet one, and a reminder that plaques are not only for grand buildings.

What else was unveiled in 2025?

Heritage Toronto’s 2025 highlights go well beyond landmarks. One plaque honours the thousands of women who worked at a top-secret General Engineering Company munitions factory in Toronto during the Second World War, known as the Bomb Girls. Another celebrates Canary Restaurant, a diner that served and shaped its neighbourhood.

There are people and places too. The Snider Family plaque acknowledges early Loyalist settlers who helped shape the Eglinton-Lawrence area. Cyril “Cy” George McLean is honoured as a celebrated jazz musician who broke racial barriers in live music. Dewson House is recognized as a thriving hub of Black feminism and racialized LGBTQ+ activism in the 1980s and 1990s. And one plaque points to an early-20th-century building on St. Clair that was among the first in Toronto to feature an internal telephone system. The highlights page lists more, so treat it as a reading list for your next walk.

Can you do a Heritage Toronto walk from your phone?

You can, with a different kind of map. Heritage Toronto’s Explore section has digital tours that start from markers on an interactive map. Being Black on King is a digital tour of the King Street neighbourhood. Making Change at Honest Ed’s is a digital tour through the Bathurst and Bloor neighbourhood that includes a map. Neither is the plaque map, but both turn a short walk into a story. Stay aware of traffic and look at your phone only when you are standing still in a safe spot.

How do you build a plaque walk?

A plaque walk is a slow kind of sightseeing, and the rules are simple. Pick a neighbourhood, pick two or three stops, and give each plaque a full read before you move on. Look at the images as well as the words, because the interpretive text and colour images are doing the storytelling together. Then look up from the plaque at the street itself and ask what has changed.

Start in the St. Lawrence area. Stops one and two sit close together, and our Old Town walk gives you a route for the rest of the neighbourhood. Add a coffee, take your time and read each plaque from beginning to end. Another good pairing is our Cabbagetown heritage walk.

If you would rather have a guide, Heritage Toronto’s 2026 tour season runs from May to November. That puts the season near its end, so check the tours page for the last walks of the year, and again when the next season is announced. For more on the city’s past, our history of Toronto guide is the place to start.

Send this to the friend who reads every plaque out loud.