In Feb. 1910, the Bank of Toronto purchased the northeast corner of Third Avenue and Broadway Street East from the Collacott Estate. Cost was $10,000.
On site was a two-storey frame building leased by the Bank of Commerce and Kerr’s Barber Shop & Billiard Hall. It was demolished that spring and a brick building was erected to house the Bank of Toronto. — This bank experienced 2 robberies, one on March 31, 1931 when Lyle Gibson from South Dakota decided to solve his own personal economic crisis in Yorkton. He entered the bank brandishing a powerful Luger automatic revolver, backed up the staff in a corner and helped himself to $2,669.23. R.C.M.P. Constable Mackay and Corporal J. Roberts traced him first in Melville, and then at Fenwood where he was apprehended. He was charged with “Robbery with Violence.” At his trial on May 11, Gibson maintained his innocence, but with the Crown introducing close to 40 witnesses, Gibson was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail. In those days, the penal system had brutal aspects to it, and so he was further sentenced to an “undetermined” number of lashes. According to one report, he ended up in the Weyburn Asylum, escaped and was never heard of again. The next robbery was in May 1941 when a man held up one teller at gun point and took off with money. C.H. Hoar of Calder was apprehended; the gun and money located by police at the Calder post office.
