The ship building area was located near Old Fort York (where smaller vessels were built for the garrison) and Queens Wharf.
Doty was acquired by Bertram Engineering Works Company in 1893 and built a large number of vessels of various sizes.
However Dominion shared the same fate as Toronto Shipyards and closed in 1920 after a strike caused the shipbuilder to go bankrupt.
The yards lay empty for two decades before being re-activated by the Government of Canada in 1941 to build minesweepers for the Royal Canadian Navy under the contractor Dufferin Shipbuilding Company Limited and then by federally owned Toronto Shipbuilding Company Limited.
Following World War II, the area remained industrial and served as docking facilities the nearby silos.