One of the stories surrounding Concord Floral’s owner dates back to 1921: a man named Fred H. Miller built a greenhouse named the Miller Florists Limited. Over the years, he served his community as the first Chairman of the York District School Board. And in 1926, the school board built the F H Miller Junior Public School in his honour.
During the 1930’s, his son Fred W. Miller took over the family business and changed its name to the Concord Floral Company Ltd. When the Great Depression hit, the sales of their roses plummeted, leaving F.W. Miller desperate to find enough money so that the operations at Concord Floral could keep running smooth. He allegedly spent a lot of time applying for bank loans, borrowing money from people and even betting on sports events.
This period of struggle came to an end with the outbreak of World War II, when the demand for flowers as a result of the war casualties went up. The business once again went back to its original form. However, with an increase in the amount of salt used on the roads since its inception in the 1940's, the river water supply proved unsuitable for the flowers and the company had to switch over to the municipal water supply.
Contrary to what the play says, the original Concord Floral was roughly a half million square feet and was said to be one of Canada’s biggest rose manufacturer. But after being passed down for generations, the owners finally decided to shut down it down in the year 2000. They apparently could not match the competitive imports from South America while paying increased energy and labour costs.
Up until the 1970's, Vaughan was mostly a rural area where people were experienced in agricultural work and willing to work in the greenhouse. But this became more and more difficult with time as urban sprawl swept through the Vaughan area. In fact, one of Fred W. Miller’s cousin Cal Miller’s greenhouse named the Maple Garden Centre and Greenhouses was shut down when Cadillac Lumber purchased the Keele Street property.
Concord Floral was eventually sold to real estate developers to be used as a potential Concord GO Centre and the greenhouse was demolished in April of 2012. The latest update on the property is that the plan for the GO centre was concocted on November 1, 2013 and approved on May 20, 2015.
References
“Concord/GO.” City of Vaughan, 2017 City of Vaughan, www.vaughan.ca/projects/policy_planning_projects/concord_go_centre_secondary_plan/Pages/default.aspx.
“Jonathan Castellino.” Image Journal, 1999 - 2017 Center For Religious Humanism, www.imagejournal.org/artist/jonathan-castellino/.
“Ontario Abandoned Places.” Concord Floral - Ontario Abandoned Places, 30 Jan. 2010, www.ontarioabandonedplaces.com/upload/wiki.asp?entry=1071.
“‘The Small School That Thinks Big!".” F H Miller Junior Public School, Toronto District School Board, schoolweb.tdsb.on.ca/fhmiller/About-Us.