Vancouver Explodes

Vancouver was incorporated on April 6, 1886 so that is our official birthday. However, many people feel that June 13, 1886 was the day that Vancouver was truly born.

Sunday, June 13, 1886 was a peaceful sunny day. Art Sullivan and a friend were lazing in a half-decked pleasure sloop just off the Burrard Inlet shore near the Indian Mission Church, west of Moodyville. Art and his mother were proprietors of the prosperous Gold's Hotel on Water Street. The Vancouver boom had been good to them and many others.

Suddenly, a fierce, freakish western squall swooped down on English Bay and the Inlet.

On the south shore, clearing fires to the west town were inflamed. The small, controlled blazes burst into a thundering menace.

Sullivan swung the sloop across the wind to head to the city wharf at the foot of Carrall Street. With two reefs in the mainsail, the jib blown away and his shipmate bailing furiously, he couldn't make the long slant to the wharf. He ended up at Hastings Mill, half a mile past the newly built wharf. That trip took less than twenty minutes.

That was all the time it took for the blossoming city of Vancouver to wiped off the face of the earth.

First warning of the impending disaster was the dense cloud of smoke from the western clearing. Then came the shouts of men running from the clearing camps, which were quickly followed by the clanging of the bell at St. James' Church at Powell Street and Westminster Road. Father Clinton had seen the mass of smoke in the distance and guessed correctly as to what it was.

There was no way to fight this fire. In seconds, not minutes the fire swept across the tangle of felled trees and brush along the shore of the inlet. It torched its way through the dense timber still standing south of Hastings Street. The flames jumped ahead of and cut off the men from the clearing gangs as they rallied on the Regina Hotel in its cleared area west of Cambie Street.

There were four avenues of escape for those in town; the city wharf at Carrall, along the CPR embankment or the road to Hastings Mill, to False Creek at Pender and Carrall or out the Wesminster Road and across the bridge to the south shore of the creek.

On the south shore, Sam Brighouse and George Black were racing horses that morning. One of the spectators, Lewis Carter - owner of Carter House - tried to make his way back into the city. He got across the bridge when the flames forced him into False Creek.

Houses in Vancouver that day did not 'catch fire'. Paint or the pitch on new boards blistered and ran, walls and roofs shimmered with heat waves for a second or two then the whole exterior of the building was a single mass of flame.

One eyewitness said, "Vancouver did not burn - it exploded."

The above information was taken from the book Vancouver, From Milltown to Metropolis by Alan Morley.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Horses and a Farmer

Do you remember when I wrote about that sports car that was being restored? Well this is the property on Powell Street where I saw it and this gathering of buildings has a history of its own.

At one time these buildings, located across from the sugar refinery, housed the horses etc used to transport goods.

Although much of the buildings have been redone at least on the outside, this interior still shows the old wood used when the building was constructed.

Can you imagine what these structures must have looked like about 100 years ago when they were constructed? A lot different than what you see now.

Now onto a story about a young man who came to our country under the service of another and made a success of himself.

Charles Maddam originally came to Canada in the service of the Marquis of Lorne - the Governor General - and the Marquis' wife Princess Louise who happened to be a daughter of Queen Victoria.

In 1888 Maddam built a home at 941 East 7th Avenue and this was the first substantial house built in the area.

Maddam and his family had a five acre farm covering what is now known as China Creek Park.

At that time the waters of False Creek ran along the northern edge of the property and that provided access to the farm by boat. The rich soil of the area allowed the Maddams to sell tons of rhubarb, apples, pears,  plums, prunes, loganberries, raspberries, strawberries and currants. The family also raised pigeons, dozens of breeds of chickens as well as producing wine and cider.

The Rainer Brewing Company of Seattle once offered the Maddams $100,000 for their land but the Maddams didn't sell. Unfortunately the family lost the land to taxes during the Depression.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Charles Maddam, Vancouver, Queen Victoria, False Creek, stables, History, Powell Street

Powell Homer

Today I want you to come back to Gastown with me. First of all we'll take a look at some buildings on Powell Street.

This is 58 Powell Street which was built in 1910 to the designs of Vancouver architect Joseph Henry Bowman. It was probably built for labour agents White and Bishoprick.

This building played a vital part in helping Japanese males immigrate to Canada during the pre-World War I era when Canada was labour hungry. Many of the men found jobs at the nearby Hastings Sawmill.

From about 1910 until World War II the inhabitants of this building were primarily Japanese businesses and individuals.

The architecture of this building is typical of the bland, early twentieth-style commercial style common in the downtown core.

The style and choice of the awkward lot of 58 Powell Street - the building is in a strange piece of land that was created by the oblique intersection of the CPR track with the street - speaks to the value of the land in the area at the time and the modest means of the owner.

Another red door at the neighbouring building. This is 56 Powell Street, a three-storey, mixed  retail and commercial building that was probably built in the mid to late 1890s. The building is a good example of the transition from the busy Victorian Italianate and Richardsonian Romanesque Styles to the much plainer Commercial Style.

When the building was constructed it was probably owned by John Babcock Lovell of Victoria. Lovell invested in real estate in the growing city of Vancouver. By 1904 the building was owned by Angelo Calori whose family owned the nearby Europe Hotel. In fact for some time the upper floors were used as an annex to the hotel. The use continued as those rooms were later used as residential or housekeeping rooms.

Over time the ground level has been home to a leather goods merchant, a barbershop, a pool hall and a cafe - typical uses for the area.

Now I am taking you out of Gastown and to the corner of Homer and Smithe Streets to give you a glimpse of this three-storey apartment building composed of two symmetrical blocks flanking the main entry facing Smithe Street. The Homer was built around 1913.

One of the important features of this building is the record of the transition of the era. The single family home residences were give way to more densely populated mix of uses.

The building’s exterior is representative of good speculative development: the classically-derived exterior composition of base, body and capital regions; the substantial brick base to the wall assemblies and between bays on the floors above; the dominant window bays on the second and third floors overhanging the public space; and the substantial cornice-work with classically-inspired details in relief.

I walked by this structure this summer but it was shrouded in scaffoldings and such. Thankfully The Homer is emerging just as beautiful as before.

I hope you find the beauty around you.


Karen Magill,The Homer, Vancouver,Smithe Street,Gastown,Hastings Sawmill.,History,Joseph Henry Bowman