In the early 1800's, Trinity-Bellwoods was part of a parcel of land belonging to Captain Samuel Smith. The area was known as 'Gore Vale' named after Lieutenant-Governor Francis Gore.

Bishop John Strachan, an Anglican priest and Archdeacon of York, admitted a royal charter from King George IV in 1827 to found King's College in Upper Canada. Trinity College was completed in 1852 around the ravine that is now Trinity-Bellwoods Park. The doorway to Trinity College is still standing at the foot of Queen Street and Strachan Avenue, and serves as a hint of this once proud institution.
By 1900, the college and its quaint atmosphere attracted residential development. Most of the enclosing streets were filled in with tall, narrow houses.

Many Polish and Ukrainian immigrants became local to the suburb from the 1920s and 1930s; the Bathurst-Queen area was the heart of the city's Polish and Ukrainian communities until the 1960s. Then throughout the years starting from the 1960s, Portuguese immigrants found their way to the village and made it their new home.