It's An Odd World

In 1932 the Burrard Bridge opened it originally connected to Cedar Street, which was south of the bridge. However the name Burrard just got extended and Cedar Street disappeared.

We are still talking about 1932, during the Great Depression, but this young lad was ingenious. Gerald Hobbis was 14-years-old and traded a bunch of old magazines for an old bicycle. Hobbis, nicknamed 'Cap', and then repaired the bike in his basement before selling it for ten dollars. Cap went on to become a highly successful bicycle retailer.

The first United Airline Flight arrived at the Vancouver International Airport in 1934. This is important because for the first three years that the airport existed there wasn't any airline companies that flew here.

Every year the Pacific National Exhibition (PNE) gives away a home. This started in 1934 where the property raffled off happened to be a fully furnished lot in East Vancouver and valued at over $5,000.

In 1936 Vancouver was visited by Lord Tweedsmuir. He was also known as John Buchan, the author of a best-selling mystery, twice filmed, titled The Thirty-Nine Steps.

In 1936 the ceiling on the second floor rotunda at Vancouver City Hall was covered with gold leaf from several British Columbia mines.

In 1938 a nineteen-year-old by the name of Annabelle Mundigel became the first person to swim from Vancouver to Bowen Island. Years later she revealed that not long after starting she had slipped out of her bathing suit and handed it to her mother who was following in a nearby boat. Then she proceeded to swim the majority of the way covered only in lard before slipping back into the suit not far from the island. Whatever works! I couldn't swim that even if I was covered in lard!

There is a restaurant called The Tea House at Ferguson Point in Stanley Park. In 1938 when it was built it was the officers' mess for the military defense garrison at Ferguson Point.

The Ford Motor Company built an assembly plant in Burnaby in 1938. During World War II it produced military vehicles.

The Vancouver Art Gallery refused to pay $400 for an Emily Carr painting in 1938 because it wasn't art as they understood it. Eventually they did pay and wonder if they realize now what a deal they got.

Here's an example of why musicians and artists should grab at opportunities. On May 1, 1940 Dal Richards and his 11 piece band were booked for six weeks, replacing Matt Kenney. That gig turned into one that lasted 25 years at the Hotel Vancouver's  Panorama Roof ballroom.

June 29, 1940 was the day that it became possible to drive across Canada within Canada. That was the day that the 'Big Bend' highway linking Revelstoke and Golden and completing the last link in the Western section of the transcontinenal highway.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Oddities, The Tea House, Dal Richards, Big Bend Highway, British Columbia

Oddly Interesting

This building is at the corner of East 1st and Commercial Drive - a very busy intersection. It was built in 1912 and was then known as Crawford  Block.

On March 1, 1928 Capt. W.D. 'Davey' Jones died. Jones was the first appointed to fire the Nine O' Clock Gun at Stanley Park at 9:00 pm every night. The time that Jones died? 9:00 pm. If you are interested in learning more about the Nine O'clock Gun, please refer to this previous entry.

Alderman J.D. Graves of the street planning committee decided in 1928 to change Union Street's name. He chose Adanac, which is Canada spelt backwards. The name was changed and to this day Vancouver has an Adanac street.

A British politician opened the New Westminster exhibition. The name of this politician? Winston Churchill.

The Barnet Lumber Mill in Burnaby was the largest mill in the world in 1930.

No Drone No. 5H was a hen from the Whiting Farm in Surrey that made history in 1930. She laid 357 eggs in 365 days. No Drone was preserved after death and her stuffed self was put on display at the World Poultry Congress in Rome.

Canadian history has been made in Vancouver a few times. In 1931 the first baseball game played under lights took place at Athletic Park on July 3.

This building was constructed in 1912 and is on Commercial Drive.

This is an interesting story. In 1931, as many of you may know, the Vancouver International Airport opened. The airport's designer, William Templeton, designed Cowley Crescent, which is a road that surrounds the first terminal. Templeton took a pencil and drew it around a light bulb he had placed on the plans. To this day it still looks like a bulb from the air.

When something of the magnitude of an international airport opens, dignitaries are often invited to tour the facilities or in this case be taken by plane into the air to see what it looked like from that angle. A well-known alderman, whose name is not mentioned, became airsick and threw up in the police chief's hat.

Further down Commercial Drive we have this place which was built in 1908. Nice t-shirt shop, I bought my parents custom-made shirts here for Christmas last year.

According to the Province on August 2, 1931 one of out of every 300 BC citizens was insane. Hmm.

In 1931 Charlie Crane was accepted to UBC. He became the first blind person accepted to a Canadian University. What is even more impressive is that Crane was also deaf.

To get the above facts I visited the History of Metropolitan Vancouver website and the oddities section. The information on the buildings comes from Bob's_2006's photostream on Flickr.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Oddities, Winston Churchill, Charlie Crane, UBC, British Columbia

Stranger than Fiction

The first two homes I am showing you I don't have any information on except for the fact that they are heritage homes.

In 1923 or '24 there were reports in the local newspapers that the Point Grey wireless station had picked up messages from Mars and it was believed that the Martians were trying to contact us.

The Lansdowne Track in Richmond was built on a peat bog and opened in 1924. The bog acted like a sponge and this caused the horses to run slower at high tide.

On January 8, 1925 a man was attacked by a shark in the First Narrows.

Also in 1925, the Vancouver chapter of the Klu Klux Klan used the Tait Mansion as their headquarters. They paid a rent of $150 a month. Now this mansion is a hospice for sick kids and is known as Canuck Place. This is a beautiful building that was featured previously. click here if you want to read that entry.

1925 was the year that Rudolph Valentino judged a tango competition in Vancouver.

Arthur 'Sparks' Holstead was granted a license to operate a 10-watt radio station in Nanaimo in 1923. In 1925 Holstead packed the transmitter in a suitcase, brought it to Vancouver and went on the air. Today we know the station as CKWX.

This was built in 1910 and was originally home to Mitchell and Cahill Grocers.

The first seaplane flight from Montreal to Vancouver occurred in 1925 and it took eight days.

In 1926 the Joe Fortes Memorial Fountain was placed in Alexandra Park. As you may remember from a previous entry Fortes was a much loved lifeguard. Much of the cost of the fountain was raised by local schoolchildren donating pennies. By the way, the fountain was carved by sculptor Charles Marega and there is a photo of it on the entry. (you have to scroll down)

A Wurlitzer pipe organ was shipped from the factory in Tonawanda, New York in 1927. This instrument had thirteen sets of pipes and it arrived here safely for installation in the new Orpheum theatre. And today it has the distinction of being the only pipe organ in Canada that is still in the theater it was originally installed in.

On October 17, 1927 a business magazine entitled the Journal of Commerce ran an editorial against skyscraper buildings in Vancouver. The writer would be horrified if he could see the city's skyline now!

On January 1, 1928 Ivy Granstorm made her first entry into the Polar Bear Swim. (People wade into the icy waters of English Bay every New Year's Day. Personally I have never done it and don't plan on trying) Granstorm was sixteen years and had been born blind. She was to partake in the Polar Bear Swim for seventy- seven consecutive years.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Joe Fortes, Polar Bear Swim, Ivy Granstorm, The Orpheum, British Columbia