Vancouver's History
The History of Vancouver
Here, in a nutshell, are some of the highlights of Vancouver's sometimes strange history.
16,000 to 11,000 BC: Segments of the Coast Salish
people-the ancestors of the Squamish, Burrard, Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam
(Xw'muthk'i'um), Tsawwassen, Coquitlam (Kwayhquitlam), Katzie and
Semiahmoo Indian bands-arrive from Asia. They seem to be quite
satisfied with the beaches teeming with seafood-they named English Bay
Ayyulshun, which means 'soft under feet'. And they liked the forests
teaming with wildlife. Not to mention that nearby is the mouth of a big
river emptying into a vast ocean where big, fat, silvery salmon swam by
six months out of every year.
1592 - 1774 AD: The Spaniards cruised by as part of
their exploration of Canada's west coast. Spain claimed the west coast
of North America by virtue of the Treaty of Tordesillas, which occurred
in 1494. Their presence is still felt today even though the Spanish
felt Friendly Cove at the entrance to Nootka Sound was a better place
for a town. The City of Vancouver has a number of streets named after
Spaniards: Cordova, Cardero, Valdez and Narvaez (Galiano Street in
Coquitlam.)
1792: Captain George Vancouver arrived. He spent one
day here, which was long enough to discover the Spanish had already
claimed the place and headed off again. During the day British Captain
Vancouver met with Spanish captains Valdez and Galiano and one of
Vancouver's best beaches, Spanish Banks is named for the meeting place.
That's also the same reason English Bay got its name. Note however,
that the Bay is bigger than the Banks and there are a ton more streets
in Vancouver named after the British. (There is a Vancouver Street but
it's, um, in New Westminster.)
1808: Simon Fraser, an explorer and fur trader arrived
here following an overland route from Eastern Canada by a river he
thought was the Columbia. Even though he was wrong about his travel
plan the river was still named for him.
1827: Hudson's Bay Company built a trading post on
Fraser River. It was the first permanent non-native settlement in the
Vancouver area. Since 1893 the company has occupied a prime location at
the corner of Georgia and Granville in Vancouver's downtown core and
they're still trading.
1858: The news there was gold on the banks of the Fraser raised a bit of interest. About 25,000 prospectors dropped in to have a look.
1860: Three English who should have stayed out of the
sun built a brickyard. The business flopped amid much guffawing and "I
told you so's" from the local population. They were called the "Three
Greenhorns"; the area is now known as the West End, one of the most
populated places in North America. And there's no shortage of brickwork
in the surrounding buildings.
1867: A talkative chap nicknamed "Gassy Jack" opened a
saloon for forestry workers on the shore of Burrard Inlet. It became so
popular a community built up around the place and called itself Gastown.
1870: Gastown is incorporated as the town of Granville.
1884: The Canadian Pacific Railway moved its terminal
from the head of Burrard Inlet to the area of Granville, now known as
Coal Harbour. Port Moody was miffed but Granville grew like Topsy. That
same year the vessel Robert Kerr left England with Seraphim Fortes
aboard. Seraphim, from Barbados who had been living in Liverpool
working as a bath attendant and swimming instructor, was heading for
Victoria when the ship foundered. It was towed into English Bay and
'Joe' Fortes thought well, what the heck, I might as well stay and do
the same kind of work here.
1886: Granville incorporated as the City of Vancouver:
now that it had about 1,000 people. The first mayor was realtor M.A.
McLean. On June 13 a brush fire got away and burnt the city to the
ground in less than 30 minutes. McLean knowing the value of real estate
got rebuilding going in a matter of days.
1887: The CPR's first train arrived; the final stop of the first transcontinental trip.
1888: The last body is buried in Pioneer Cemetery, the
graveyard of many of Vancouver's earliest citizens. The cemetery
stretched from Brockton Point to the Nine o'clock Gun. Why no more?
Well: 1888 was when the road that would eventually wind around Stanley
Park was first constructed in the Brockton Point area. The first
perimeter road around Stanley Park was paved with the shells from
native middens (refuse heaps) in the park.
1889: The first Granville Street bridge is completed.
There was another one built in 1909. The one that's there now is the
third built in 1954.
1890: The first lighthouse is built at Brockton Point. Electric streetcars began operating this year.
1891: The city's first tram-based public transit system, the Interurban starts up.
1898: Sand is added to English Bay Beach. Up to that
time you had to walk through bushes to get to it. A large rock on the
beach separated men and women bathers (no peeking!) The Nine o'clock
Gun is placed at Brockton point. People still set their watches by it.
1900: Vancouver surpasses the provincial capital of Victoria in size. Did they immediately move the capital to Vancouver? No.
1902: The first meeting of the Vancouver Information
& Tourist Association was held on June 25, 1902. Today, the
organization celebrates more than 100 years of operation and is now
known as Tourism Vancouver.
1905: Johann and Anna Breitenbach arrive in Vancouver
from Brisbane, Australia aboard the Aorangi. They were two of hundreds
of new immigrants to Vancouver as the flood of people moved through to
settle the Prairies. The Breitenbachs stayed and their descendants are
still in Vancouver. The trip took a month; they travelled in steerage
the whole way. They brought their ten kids with them. And you think
commuting today is tough.
1909: The Dominion Trust Building, the city's first
skyscraper opens at Hastings and Cambie. It's still there but looking
kind of puny. The same year the second Granville Street Bridge opens.
1911: Canada's first artificial ice rink, the Arena,
opened. People immediately begin skating around the edge
counter-clockwise. It was at 1805 West Georgia at the corner of Denman.
At the time it was the largest indoor ice rink in the world. The
Vancouver Millionaires, the city's first hockey team, was built out of
players swiped from the National Hockey League.
The 1914-15 season: The Millionaires become Stanley Cup champions.
1915: The first lighthouse at Brockton Point is torn
down and the current one is built. You notice the arch at the bottom of
the current lighthouse? That was going to be part of a boathouse until
somebody noticed that the ocean current right there would make it
easier to not store boats there.
The University of British Columbia opens for business. A few students showed up. There are 17,000 there now.
1920: Vancouver grows bigger than Winnipeg, which was
the main city of western Canada. For its next trick the city's
population turned out in droves to watch Houdini suspend himself from
the top of the Sun Tower. He chose that building because that's where
The Vancouver Sun's offices were located at the time.
1922: 'Joe' Fortes dies of pneumonia. The City paid
for his funeral and thousands of people, many of whom learned how to
swim with Joe's meaty hands holding them up in the lukewarm waters of
English Bay, lined Granville and Hastings Streets to say goodbye.
1925: The first Second Narrows Bridge connects the city with North Vancouver. The one that's there now is the second one.
1927: In Alexandra Park, a small drinking fountain,
just the right size for kids, was built to commemorate 'Joe' Fortes; it
was near where he lived in a shack that the City had saved for him when
it tore down all the squatters shacks on English Bay Beach years
earlier. The inscription on the drinking fountain reads: "Little
children loved him."
1929: Visiting Winston Churchill commends the decision
to hold the 60th Annual PNE even though the fair grounds burned to the
ground a few weeks earlier.
1931: The English Bay bathhouse was constructed out of concrete replacing the first bathhouse, which was made of wood.
1936: The new City Hall at 12th Avenue and Cambie is
dedicated. It still looks like it ought to be in Gotham City. The same
year the Denman arena was destroyed by fire.
1938: The Lions Gate Bridge is completed so a real
estate company can at last sell the property it bought on the North
Shore. It was engineered to last about 50 years.
1939: The landmark Hotel Vancouver is completed.
1954: The British Empire and Commonwealth Games
Association of Canada donated the flag after the name change was voted
on in 1952, and it was used for the first time at the 5th British
Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver in 1954. The games featured
the Miracle Mile, in which two runners-Roger Bannister and John
Landy-both broke the 4:00 minute mark for the mile, the first sports
event televised to all North America.
1957: Elvis Presley sings a half dozen songs and
leaves the stage after 15 minutes. The audience paid $2 per ticket and
were pretty cheesed by being short-changed.
1959: A busy year. The city's first shopping mall, the
Oakridge Centre, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and the Vancouver Maritime
Museum all open. That year they also sunk the George Massey Tunnel-most
people still call it the Deas Island Tunnel. Fortunately, sinking it
was the right thing to do because it goes under the Fraser River.
1964: For the first time the BC Lions won the Canadian Football League's Grey Cup.
1970: The Vancouver Canucks played their first game in the National Hockey League. They played the Los Angeles Kings (and lost.)
1974: The locomotive Royal Hudson logs its inaugural
run since being rebuilt. People are steamed today, not because the
famous loco plied the Squamish run for so many years, but because it's
now toast. Efforts however are currently underway to rehabilitate the
Royal Hudson and hopefully it will soon be making its picturesque
journey.
1979: The Vancouver Whitecaps won the North American Soccer League championship.
1983: BC Place Stadium inflates and becomes the
world's largest air-supported dome. It has 60,000 seats. Let's put that
in perspective. If you put all the residents of Vancouver in it when
the city was incorporated 97 years earlier, you would have 59,000 empty
seats.
1985: SkyTrain starts up mid-December. The initial
route, from Vancouver to New Westminster, retraces in part one of
Vancouver's original Interurban lines.
1986: Vancouver's centennial is marked by the highly
successful six-month fair Expo 86 on the north shore of False Creek. It
was the largest special category World Exposition ever staged in North
America -the category was Transportation.
1988: Vancouver holds its first Vancouver Sun Run, a
10 kilometre run through downtown streets and spectacular Stanley Park.
Now an annual, very popular event, first year's participants were 6500
- by 2003 there were approximately 49,000 runners - a true reflection
of the love of sport in the outdoors!
That same year, the first ever Vancouver Gay Pride Festival. Now also
an annual, week long event, it includes a parade and a variety of
celebrations and parties throughout the city.
1990: The 1990s began with a roar as the first "Indy"
race took place on the downtown Vancouver track, winding through tight
corners, past apartment complexes, False Creek and Science World. It
was an annual event held each summer, however 2004 was the final year
that it took place in Vancouver.
1993: Woodward's department store, a Canadian retail
institution dating back to 1903, goes bankrupt and closes its doors.
Over the following years, debate regarding reuse of the landmark
building or redevelopment of its property has ranged from the creation
of affordable housing to a downtown parking complex to various retail
options. Today, there are several housing options still being reviewed.
1994: The Vancouver Canucks reach the Stanley Cup
finals but lose in the final moments of the final game. The BC Lions
football team won the Grey Cup for the second time in their history.
1995: The new Vancouver Public Library building opens
and is a landmark within the downtown core. Interestingly, initial
designs had the building facing the opposite direction, with the main
entrance facing Georgia. As they finalized construction plans, someone
noticed that by flipping the design, the main plaza would face the sun
rather than being in the shadow of the main building!
General Motors Place for hockey, basketball and musical performances, opens and is nicknamed 'The Garage'.
The spiffy Ford Centre for the Performing Arts opens for what turned
out to be for three years before it reopened as The Centre in Vancouver
for Performing Arts, and today offers large-scale theatrical
productions several times a year.
1996: Estimates show the central city's population had increased by more than 107,000 since 1981-a 26 per cent jump!
The Vancouver Grizzlies joined the NBA, along with the Toronto Raptors,
as part of the league's two-pronged expansion into Canada. They are the
first non-U.S. cities to join the league since 1946-47. Unfortunately,
the Grizzlies were sold in 2001, so Vancouver only got to enjoy their
NBA team for 5 years.
1997: The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts opens at
the University of British Columbia, offering year round performance by
University programs, touring companies and local performers.
1999: Vancouver creates the 2010 Olympic Bid team to
organize the proposal to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. By July, 2004,
Vancouver is selected!
2000: The annual Polar Bear Swim, started in 1920 by a local restaurant owner, Peter Pantages, reaches a record of 2,128 swimmers.
2001: It is estimated that 200 movie and television
productions are filmed in Vancouver. Each year, this list grows more
and more substantial, as estimates from 1981 show only 11 productions!
Earning its nickname of 'Hollywood North', celebrity spotting is
everywhere - they're out and about on Vancouver streets, browsing in
shops and relaxing in local restaurants and spas.
2002: The Economist magazine's Intelligence Unit ties Vancouver and Melbourne as the World's Top City to live in.
2003: Mercer Human Resource Consulting rates Vancouver as top city in North America for quality of life.
July 1 - Canada Day - 2003, Vancouver is selected as the Host City for
2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. GM Place broadcasts the
announcement live to a sold out crowd, while celebrations take place
across the city.
2004: The hosting of the first large outdoor public
arts show on the streets of Vancouver called 'Orcas in the City' by the
BC Lions Society.
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David Valente
www.davidvalente.com
Prudential Sussex Realty
Committed Service. Real Estate Sales.
Valente Real Estate North Vancouver. Real Estate West Vancouver. Real Estate Downtown Vancouver. Real Estate in the Lower Mainland. Buy and Sell Real Estate. Dave Valente