Towards the end, the silos also marked the port's decline and the desire to remove the industrial eyesore along Toronto's waterfront.
Before construction of the fourth Welland Canal, prairie grain was shipped to lakeports such as Collingwood or Midland, transferred to rail car, and delivered to Toronto - a laborious process.
Gordon C. Leitch realized when the canal opened, he would be able to ship grain directly to the Toronto waterfront at considerable efficiency.
[19] After labour disputes involving "waterfront warlord" Hal C. Banks[20] at ULS in the 1960s, culminating in the bombing of the SS Howard L. Shaw (today one of the breakwater ships at Ontario Place),[21] the Norris family grew disenchanted with the partnership.
With the decline in use of Toronto harbour as a shipping centre in the 1980s and redevelopment of the waterfront, the future of the silos was set.
Demolition took a full year, cost $1 million, and bankrupted the Thunder Bay wrecking company.
With the closure of the Toronto site, MLM moved production to other locations, among them Cavan, Ontario (later as Masterfeeds and now as a unit of Alltech) in 1975.
After two decades the city facilitated the creation of HTO Park West in 2007 and thus completed the revitalization of the entire site.