Ferndale

A few blocks in from Hastings Street and off of Victoria Drive is a street called Ferndale. According to map, Ferndale Street runs for five blocks between Victoria Drive and Nanaimo Street. There is history in those five blocks though.

Until 1929 this was Keefer Street and it was on the street car line. The street car went west into downtown and was extended to Boundary Road between 1910 and 1919. (There is still a Keefer Street in Strathcona)

This house at 1945 Ferndale was built in 1908. A Joseph Rainey (name may be misspelled) applied to have the house hooked up to the city water system. By 1909, the resident was Gordon Loane, a cashier at the Hastings Shingle and Manufacturing Company. One of the mills for the company was on Powell Street, which is a short walk downhill from Ferndale.

For a number of years prior to WWI, the owner of Manitoba Transfer, John Cummings, lived in this house. A transfer company was the precursor to present day teamsters. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters logo incorporates two horses and this is reminiscent of the transfer companies since they would drive heavy-duty carts pulled by two horses.

The house at 1945 Ferndale has been loving restored. The original mouldings have been matched; the original staircase, windows and siding have all been kept. Although the new owners gave the interior of the home a more open plan, the original doors were reinstalled in other parts of the home.

Not so much care has been taken with the house across the street, 1946. First resident was a teamster by the name of John H. Enright and this home was built in 1912. Yet, if you look close and use a little imagination, you can see how beautiful and majestic the home once was.

The Vancouver Improvement Company - who owned much of Vancouver's east side - opened this area for development from 1907 to 1909. This street was close to the waterfront industrial area and downtown so it was probably marketed as the working class area of the new high-end suburb Grandview. The lots were smaller and the views were much less grand.

Thanks goes entirely to Bob_2006 at flickr for this information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Ferndale, history, Hastings, shingle British Columbia, Canada, teamsters, restoration,City water