Elixir of Success

This photo is from 1885, taken by Erskine/Beveridge photo studio. It is taken looking east on Water Street, near Carrall. It is entitled 'Wanderings with a Camera' and is labelled Main Street, Granville.

This photo dates a year later, after the great fire on June 13, 1886. This is the Tremont Hotel on Carrall Street between Cordova and Powell Streets.

Timms/Philip is the studio credited with this 1886 photo although H. Devine took the original.This is the corner of Abbott and Water Streets and is the 'Meeting Place'.

And this is the original. It was taken six weeks before the fire and as you may be able to see, there are extensive notes on the bottom of the photo.

These old photos were found in the historical photos section online at the Vancouver Public Library.

One fine day, an Englishman by the name of Jack Deighton arrived on the shores of what is now Burrard Inlet. He had travelled by canoe from New Westminster with his First Nations wife, a yellow dog, six dollars in his pocket and a barrel of whiskey.

Deighton was here to open a business - a saloon. Upon seeing some mill workers lounging around he made them an offer. All the whiskey they could drink if they would build him a saloon. And that is how the Globe saloon came to be built, the area of Vancouver we now call Gastown began and in turn how Vancouver started.

This is an 1884 photo that shows Gastown/Granville from Burrard Inlet.

Dominion Photo Co is responsible for this 1870 picture of the Maple tree at the corner of Water and Abbott where people used to gather. It was known as Gassy Jack's Tree.

Timms/Philip took this 1885 photo of Gastown/Granville.

H.T. Devine was on hand to take this photo of the first passenger to disembark from the first C.P.R. train to arrive in Vancouver on May 23, 1887.

In May of 1886, John Stewart was appointed Chief Constable and became the first Vancouver police officer. For a while, he was the only one. A month later, after the great fire that caused so much damage, Mayor McLean was standing on Water Street and looking at Burrard Inlet. He saw barrels of whiskey floating by and immediately sworn in as a constable a former store owner who was standing nearby. The new constable's first assignment was to go into the water and get those barrels. And the expansion of the VPD had begun.

I am sure you have heard about Dayton Boots before. I have written on this fine company in an earlier post.

It all started with Charlie Wohlford, manager at the Lumberman's Social Club at 64 East Hastings. In 1946, after World War II, the logging business was booming. Wohlford had learned the craft of boot making in his native Bavaria and he was often asked by the loggers to repair their boots.

One night, over a case of whiskey, a group of loggers talked Charlie into starting his own company and making this quality footwear available for everyone. 67 years later, Dayton Boots is still going strong.

These three stories tell of important events in our history as well as the formation of successful companies. The one thing each tale has in common is that whiskey seems to have been a motivating force in all of it. So I have to ask, is whiskey the elixir of success?

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill, Vancouver, Dayton Boots, history, VanDusen, whiskey British Columbia, Canada, VPD,VPL