Eaton's Annex

in 1926, with views of City Hall (left) and the Main Store (right) in the foreground, the Annex building (behind City Hall) in the middleground, and Eaton's factory buildings in the background. By 1900, the Eaton's department store owned most of the land within the city blocks bordered by Yonge Street, Queen Street, Bay Street and Dundas Street. The land was eventually occupied by the Eaton's Main Store, the Annex building and various Eaton's warehouses and mail-order buildings. The Main Store and the Annex, however, were the only two buildings open to the public. The two buildings were connected by an underground passageway open to both employees and shoppers. It was the first underground pathway in Toronto open to the public, and it is often credited as a historic precursor to Toronto's current downtown PATH network. When the Annex building opened in 1913 as Eaton's House Furnishing Building, it contained Eaton's housewares and furniture departments. ==Legacy==

Parts of the Annex building survive as Trinity Square. A portion of the Bell Trinity Square office complex currently occupies the former Annex site. The same underground passage that formerly linked the Annex and the Main Store now connects the Eaton Centre to the Bell Trinity Centre, and it is part of the PATH network. In honour of this store, a ski run at the Caledon Ski Club in Caledon, Ontario, was named "Eaton's Annex" after the Eaton family, who were original members of the private club. ==Notes==