The Daring Thieves

Today, I am going to do something different. I follow the blog,Grandview Heritage Blog and Jak King recently published something very interesting. It is an article in the January 10, 1910 edition of The Vancouver Daily World newspaper.  I am going to print the article here for you to read.

"A daring attempted holdup was made on a laundry driver Saturday night at 6 o'clock, when three men pointed three revolvers at S. Robinson and ordered him to hold up his hands. The driver's presence of mind stood him in good stead, and whipping his horse, drove off at a furious gait amid a fusilade of revolver shots.

At the time of the attempted holdup Robinson had $87 on his person, much of it in silver. It is evident that the would-be highwaymen had been following the movements of the rig and its driver for some time, as at this particular point most of his parcels had been delivered and consequently he carried more money. The point of the hold up is at a dark place on Third Avenue, and is frequented by pedestrians but very little.

Owing to the darkness and in his hurry to escape, the driver was unable to learn much regarding the description of the men. He states that the three men are of medium height and build, while one of the men wore a brown slouch hat. Later on in the evening as Robinson was finishing delivering his load of laundry on Park [Commercial] Drive he saw three men who looked very much like those implicated in the attempted holdup get into a buggy and dfrive rapidly down Park Drive towards Venables Street.  Owing to the snow, which was falling thickly at the time, Robinson was unable to state whether the rig turned east or west when reaching Venables.

Within twenty minutes the police were at the scene of the holdup, and although they searched the neighbourhood thoroughly, no trace of the men could be found ... The theory advanced by the police is that a band of desperate characters are camping in the vicinity of the city in Hastings making nightly visits to the city while they spend the day in seclusion in the fastness of the forest somewhere in Hastings townsite.

This is the fourth occurence of this nature within the city within the past three weeks.Two were unsuccessful, while $8.75 were taken from a young man on Victoria Drive under a street light last month, and more recently two masked men succeeded in robbing a street car conductor at the point of revolvers at the terminus of the Powell Street line last week."

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Salsbury Sights

North of Hastings Street, there is an industrial area. Hidden among the warehouses and factories, is this treasure at 220 Salsbury Drive.

This house is a common design - a simple rectangular form with a front-gabled roof and an attached porch known as a Gabled Vernacular - however, the construction is unique.It is made from concrete blocks, which were likely made on site using a mold kit that was available at the time.

Concrete blocks with a rusticated face were a poor man's granite at the time. This material is usually found on retaining walls and gateposts on the big wooden houses east of Commercial Drive.

This house is probably from 1908. However, the source I am getting information from hasn't been able to find a building permit as of yet. The building appeared on Goad's map of 1911. Blacksmith Alex J. Ross is listed as living here at that time.

The next building I want to talk about is also on Salsbury. 1010 to be exact. It is an apartment building designed by Arthur Julius Bird for Caledonian Investment Co. Tradesmen, labourers were rapidly coming to the Grandview area and housing was needed for them.

The building permit is dated August 5, 1911 and R. Maclean and Co carried out the work at an estimated cost of $34,000. 

At the time this was built, there was almost no zoning restrictions and people were able to do basically whatever they wanted. This structure is just north of a grand home, 'Kurrajong'. (Here's my entry on that beautiful building)

There is a sort of do-as-you-please attitude to these structures. Here, the architect fancied up a plain Edwardian apartment block with bay windows framing the three entrances.

I want to thank the Grandview Heritage Group for the information on these buildings. 

I also want to tell you that from today until Saturday morning at 8 am PST, my eBook On The Right Side, My Story of Survival and Success, will be on sale for 99 cents in the UK and the US.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Highland Echo

In 1917, a local newspaper, the Highland Echo, began to circulate in the Commercial Drive area. The paper was odd and definitely local. There was no international or national news listed in the paper. Instead, the reporters wrote about economic and personal stories about Commercial Drive and the Grandview area. This weekly publication animated the area.

The Echo ran until 1995 but, unfortunately, the earliest editions have disappeared. The Special Collections department of the Vancouver Public Library have collected and maintained issues from 1935 to 1969 and these have provided information for at least two books on the history of Commercial Drive. There is almost a complete set of issues from 1970 to 1995 at the Provincial archives. Sadly, those archives are in Victoria and it is difficult for Vancouver based researchers to access them.

The location of these copies has been solved though. I am consulting a November 13, 2012 blog entry for the Grandview Heritage Group and the group purchased copies of all twenty-one microfilms of the Highland Echo and donated them to the Vancouver Public Library. Now, Vancouver based researchers don't have to leave the mainland to consult these valuable sources of local information.

When I read this blog entry, I got to thinking. There are so many things in our lives that we consider trivial. I am sure that there were issues of the Highland Echo which many considered frivolous, not worth the time taken to write it or the paper it was produced on. Yet all these years later, historians consider the paper to be a valuable source of information. Funny how life works isn't it?

I hope you find the beauty around you.