Never Amount to Anything

We look around Vancouver now and think, Wow! This city is really growing! However, if we go back to 1886, then we can truly see a growth. At the end of February - before Granville was Vancouver - there were 100 habitable buildings. By mid-May there were 600 and two weeks later, 800 with more under construction.  In March, lots were selling for less than $300 but by May, those same lots were being sold for $1,000.

A telegraph cable was laid to Victoria, Vancouver's first County Court session was scheduled for June 15, a huge Dominion Day celebration planned for July 1. The new city of Vancouver was busy and it must have been so exciting.

There was a new and larger Methodist church, which opened on Water Street on May 2. A Presbyterian church opened on Oppenheimer Street June 6 and that same day Vancouver's first beer garden and cabaret opened. It was called Columbia Hall and was completed by Frank Fooks.

Over 300 Vancouverites attending the opening of the hall at which the New Westminster Brass Band played, Pearl Anderson and C.E. Dunbar sang, Miss Grayson recited and the "acrobatic song and dance experts" Websterr and Steel charmed the crowd.

"Big George" of the North Shore reserve threw a potlactch which attracted 4,000 Indians and whites. Some in attendance remarked on the extravagance of Indian ways.

Joe Mannion had enlarged the Granville Hotel and now he sold it for a good profit before retiring to a private life. Sam Bierly died and was buried on Deadman's Island. It was already crowded with 25 graves and Vancouver decided it was high time the provincial government came through with its promise of 25 acres to be used as a cemetery.

The Bank of Montreal bought a lot at Granville and Dunsmuir Streets on May 27. The general manager, Buchann, got stuck in Granville mud earlier in the year and had returned to the east with a bad cold and declared Vancouver "would never amount to anything."

I am grateful to Alan Morley and his book Vancouver, From Milltown to Metropolis for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Damned Vancouver Fellows

L.A. Hamilton was continuing with his survey of the Granville townsite and it wasn't easy. The original layout, he complained, made it impossible to avoid some irregular corners downtown. The sale of some "City of Liverpool" lots to Joseph Spratt added more difficulties. This hiccup forced a jog in Hastings at Burrard.

Hamilton had his achievements too. One of them was a "mile-long peephole" hewed in the forest where Granville Street now runs.

 The names of the streets downtown are those of CPR officials - Hamilton was, after all, a CPR surveyor - and the streets in the West End came mainly from Admiralty charts and provincial dignitaries.

When the survey was complete, the CPR decided whether a landholder or the railway got first choice concerning a lot of land through a draw of hat. That was the 1884 settlement.

In later years, Hamilton confessed he had "cooked the draw" in favour of Brighouse so that he might retain the lots on which the "three greenhorns" had built their cabin in 1862. (For more information on the "three greenhorns" see this entry.)

Granville was a hard-boiled, hard-drinking, hard-living town. Cards and alcohol were everywhere. The night before the land draw, CPR president, Van Horne, was unmercifully skinned in a poker game. The next morning, he told Hamilton,

"Keep your eyes open. Theses damned Vancouver fellows will steal the pants off you."

David and Isaac Oppenheimer formed a syndicate, where they bought part of the Hastings Mill site and logged the land between Carrall Street and Gore Avenue in addition to getting ready to open a wholesale and retail grocery at the corner of Powell and Columbia streets. During an all-night poker game, one of the players woke to find four queens in his hand. He looked around suspiciously.

"Who dealt?" he asked.
"Ikey." someone answered.
"Who cut?"
"David."
"I pass." said the drowsy gentleman and threw his hand in.

David Oppenheimer went on to become our second mayor.

The person who recorded the above incident saw the owner of a general store at Water and Alexander Streets, Hugh Keefer, bet $100 on which of two flies crawling up a bar mirror would reach the top first.  Some people will bet on anything!

Then again, a man had to be a gambler to live in Granville. People who settled in the townsite by the inlet bet his time, his future and his earthly possessions on the hamlet in the wilderness becoming something.

Granville was growing rapidly. Hamilton recorded there were barley 100 habitable buildings in the town as the end of February 1886. By the middle of May, there were at least 600 inhabited by speculators, merchants, families and worker required to build 500 buildings in 75 days.

In January 432 residents of Granville signed a petition to the provincial Legislature asking the City of Vancouver be incorporated. There was opposition from representatives of New Westminster but the act received third reading April 2, at 7:30 pm and Lieutenant-Governor C.F. Cornwall gave it royal assent April 6.

Thanks to the book Vancouver, From Milltown to Metropolis by Alan Morley for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Who Named Vancouver?

The Canadian Pacific Railway made the arrangements necessary to get the land for the new terminus - in Granville - and the agreement included provisions for an immediate survey. Van Horne of the CPR sent L.A. Hamilton who, in 1885, laid out downtown Vancouver on the approximate lines it is today. Van Horne's final instructions to Hamilton contain some interesting words.

"Hamilton," the surveyor reports him as saying, "this eventually is destined to be a great city in Canada. We must see that it has a name that will designate its place on the  map of Canada.

"Vancouver it shall be, if I have the ultimate decision."

This is intriguing to me because there is also the story of Van Horne being taken in a rowboat out around what is now Stanley Park. Trying to show the CPR president that Coal Harbour and Granville was where the terminus should be. The rowboat operator - I can't remember who it is - and Van Horne discussed names and came up with Vancouver. I wonder if that happened before this.

It is possible the decision was Van Horne's since his wish would have carried great weight. However, it is also probable the name had been under general consideration for some time previously. As early as August 1884, it had been used in a Portland, Oregon, newspaper for the western terminus of the CPR.

Whatever the name, the railway's plans for the port pushed ahead.

By this time, it was public knowledge that the CPR was negotiating for a right-of-way to Granville but the public's reaction was interesting.

Investors and speculators, such as J.W. Horne of Brandon, who had "looked in" at Granville in 1883 and again in 1884 and a Victoria businessman, Frederick Buscombe, decided "it was too early yet" to invest in the Granville area. They put off their plans for a year or two.

A. W. Ross, M.P for Lisgar, Manitoba,was hard hit financially in Winnipeg and came west to see if he could retrieve his fortunes in Port Moody. When he got here though, he changed his mind. He invested all he had and borrowed all he could to purchase Granville lots in 1884. Perhaps his former connections with the CPR syndicate had something to do with his decisions.

This was a perfect time for Port Moody speculators - both local and from Victoria - to hedge, but they refused to do so. I guess they lost out.

Thanks to the book Vancouver, From Milltown to Metropolis by Alan Morley for the information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.