A Brief
History of Vancouver
-
courtesy
Tourism Vancouver
with additional material from GayVancouver.Net
Here, in a nutshell, are some of the highlights of
Vancouver's sometimes oddball history.
For those that are interested,
The Tyee has an excellent piece on gay history in Canada and
don't forget to check out our Proud Out Loud winner - the
Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives.
16,000 to 11,000 BC: Segments of the
Coast Salish people-the ancestors of the Squamish, Burrard, Tsleil-Waututh,
Musqueam (Xw'muthk'i'um), Tsawwassen, Coquitlam (Kwayhquitlam), Katzie and
Semiahmoo Indian bands-arrive from Asia. They seem to be quite satisfied with
the beaches teeming with seafood-they named English Bay Ayyulshun, which means
'soft under feet'. And they liked the forests teaming with wildlife. Not to
mention that nearby is the mouth of a big river emptying into a vast ocean where
big, fat, silvery salmon swam by six months out of every year.
1592 - 1774 AD: The Spaniards cruised by
as part of their exploration of Canada's west coast. Spain claimed the west
coast of North America by virtue of the Treaty of Tordesillas, which occurred in
1494. Their presence is still felt today even though the Spanish felt Friendly
Cove at the entrance to Nootka Sound was a better place for a town. The City of
Vancouver has a number of streets named after Spaniards: Cordova, Cardero,
Valdez and Narvaez (Galiano Street in Coquitlam.)
1792: Captain George Vancouver arrived.
He spent one day here, which was long enough to discover the Spanish had already
claimed the place and headed off again. During the day British Captain Vancouver
met with Spanish captains Valdez and Galiano and one of Vancouver's best
beaches, Spanish Banks is named for the meeting place. That's also the same
reason English Bay got its name. Note however, that the Bay is bigger than the
Banks and there are a ton more streets in Vancouver named after the British.
(There is a Vancouver Street but it's, um, in New Westminster.)
1808: Simon Fraser, an explorer and fur
trader arrived here following an overland route from Eastern Canada by a river
he thought was the Columbia. Even though he was wrong about his travel plan the
river was still named for him.
1827: Hudson's Bay Company built a
trading post on Fraser River. It was the first permanent non-native settlement
in the Vancouver area. Since 1893 the company has occupied a prime location at
the corner of Georgia and Granville in Vancouver's downtown core and they're
still trading.
1858: The news there was gold on the
banks of the Fraser raised a bit of interest. About 25,000 prospectors dropped
in to have a look.
1860: Three English who should have
stayed out of the sun built a brickyard. The business flopped amid much
guffawing and "I told you so's" from the local population. They were called the
"Three Greenhorns"; the area is now known as the West End, one of the most
populated places in North America. And there's no shortage of brickwork in the
surrounding buildings.
1867: A talkative chap nicknamed "Gassy
Jack" opened a saloon for forestry workers on the shore of Burrard Inlet. It
became so popular a community built up around the place and called itself
Gastown.
1870: Gastown is incorporated as the
town of Granville.
1884: The Canadian Pacific Railway moved
its terminal from the head of Burrard Inlet to the area of Granville, now known
as Coal Harbour. Port Moody was miffed but Granville grew like Topsy. That same
year the vessel Robert Kerr left England with Seraphim Fortes aboard. Seraphim,
from Barbados who had been living in Liverpool working as a bath attendant and
swimming instructor, was heading for Victoria when the ship foundered. It was
towed into English Bay and 'Joe' Fortes thought well, what the heck, I might as
well stay and do the same kind of work here.
1886: Granville incorporated as the City
of Vancouver: now that it had about 1,000 people. The first mayor was realtor
M.A. McLean. On June 13 a brush fire got away and burnt the city to the ground
in less than 30 minutes. McLean knowing the value of real estate got rebuilding
going in a matter of days.
1887: The CPR's first train arrived; the
final stop of the first transcontinental trip.
1888: The last body is buried in Pioneer
Cemetery, the graveyard of many of Vancouver's earliest citizens. The cemetery
stretched from Brockton Point to the Nine o'clock Gun. Why no more? Well: 1888
was when the road that would eventually wind around Stanley Park was first
constructed in the Brockton Point area. The first perimeter road around Stanley
Park was paved with the shells from native middens (refuse heaps) in the park.
1889: The first Granville Street bridge
is completed. There was another one built in 1909. The one that's there now is
the third built in 1954.
1890: The first lighthouse is built at
Brockton Point. Electric streetcars began operating this year.
1891: The city's first tram-based public
transit system, the Interurban starts up.
1898: Sand is added to English Bay
Beach. Up to that time you had to walk through bushes to get to it. A large rock
on the beach separated men and women bathers (no peeking!) The Nine o'clock Gun
is placed at Brockton point. People still set their watches by it.
1900: Vancouver surpasses the provincial
capital of Victoria in size. Did they immediately move the capital to Vancouver?
No.
1902: The first meeting of the Vancouver
Information & Tourist Association was held on June 25, 1902. Today, the
organization celebrates more than 100 years of operation and is now known as
Tourism Vancouver.
1905: Johann and Anna Breitenbach arrive
in Vancouver from Brisbane, Australia aboard the Aorangi. They were two of
hundreds of new immigrants to Vancouver as the flood of people moved through to
settle the Prairies. The Breitenbachs stayed and their descendants are still in
Vancouver. The trip took a month; they travelled in steerage the whole way. They
brought their ten kids with them. And you think commuting today is tough.
1909: The Dominion Trust Building, the
city's first skyscraper opens at Hastings and Cambie. It's still there but
looking kind of puny. The same year the second Granville Street Bridge opens.
1911: Canada's first artificial ice
rink, the Arena, opened. People immediately begin skating around the edge
counter-clockwise. It was at 1805 West Georgia at the corner of Denman. At the
time it was the largest indoor ice rink in the world. The Vancouver
Millionaires, the city's first hockey team, was built out of players swiped from
the National Hockey League.
The 1914-15 season: The Millionaires
become Stanley Cup champions.
1915: The first lighthouse at Brockton
Point is torn down and the current one is built. You notice the arch at the
bottom of the current lighthouse? That was going to be part of a boathouse until
somebody noticed that the ocean current right there would make it easier to not
store boats there.
The University of British Columbia opens for
business. A few students showed up. There are 17,000 there now.
1920: Vancouver grows bigger than
Winnipeg, which was the main city of western Canada. For its next trick the
city's population turned out in droves to watch Houdini suspend himself from the
top of the Sun Tower. He chose that building because that's where The Vancouver
Sun's offices were located at the time.
1922: 'Joe' Fortes dies of pneumonia.
The City paid for his funeral and thousands of people, many of whom learned how
to swim with Joe's meaty hands holding them up in the lukewarm waters of English
Bay, lined Granville and Hastings Streets to say goodbye.
1925: The first Second Narrows Bridge
connects the city with North Vancouver. The one that's there now is the second
one.
1927: In Alexandra Park, a small
drinking fountain, just the right size for kids, was built to commemorate 'Joe'
Fortes; it was near where he lived in a shack that the City had saved for him
when it tore down all the squatters shacks on English Bay Beach years earlier.
The inscription on the drinking fountain reads: "Little children loved him."
1929: Visiting Winston Churchill
commends the decision to hold the 60th Annual PNE even though the fair grounds
burned to the ground a few weeks earlier.
1931: The English Bay bathhouse was
constructed out of concrete replacing the first bathhouse, which was made of
wood.
1936: The new City Hall at 12th Avenue
and Cambie is dedicated. It still looks like it ought to be in Gotham City. The
same year the Denman arena was destroyed by fire.
1938: The Lions Gate Bridge is completed
so a real estate company can at last sell the property it bought on the North
Shore. It was engineered to last about 50 years.
1939: The landmark Hotel Vancouver is
completed.
1954: The British Empire and
Commonwealth Games Association of Canada donated the flag after the name change
was voted on in 1952, and it was used for the first time at the 5th British
Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver in 1954. The games featured the
Miracle Mile, in which two runners-Roger Bannister and John Landy-both broke the
4:00 minute mark for the mile, the first sports event televised to all North
America.
1957: Elvis Presley sings a half dozen
songs and leaves the stage after 15 minutes. The audience paid $2 per ticket and
were pretty cheesed by being short-changed.
1959: A busy year. The city's first
shopping mall, the Oakridge Centre, the Queen Elizabeth Theatre and the
Vancouver Maritime Museum all open. That year they also sunk the George Massey
Tunnel-most people still call it the Deas Island Tunnel. Fortunately, sinking it
was the right thing to do because it goes under the Fraser River.
1964: For the first time the BC Lions
won the Canadian Football League's Grey Cup.
1970: The Vancouver Gay Liberation Front
forms.
The Vancouver Canucks played their first game
in the National Hockey League. They played the Los Angeles Kings (and lost.)
1971: The Gay Alliance Toward Equality
(GATE) holds founding meetings in Vancouver.
1973: GATE publishes the first issue of
Gay Tide. When the Vancouver Sun refuses to run a classified
subscription ad for Gay Tide, GATE organizes a demonstration outside the
Sun's office.
1974: The locomotive Royal Hudson logs
its inaugural run since being rebuilt. People are steamed today, not because the
famous loco plied the Squamish run for so many years, but because it's now
toast. Efforts however are currently underway to rehabilitate the Royal Hudson
and hopefully it will soon be making its picturesque journey.
1978: The first ever Vancouver Gay Pride
Festival was held in Vancouver. Now an annual, week long event, it includes a
parade and a variety of celebrations and parties throughout the city.
1979: The Vancouver Whitecaps won the
North American Soccer League championship.
1983: Angles, Vancouver's bisexual, gay,
transgender and lesbian magazine publishes it's first edition.
BC Place Stadium inflates and becomes the
world's largest air-supported dome. It has 60,000 seats. Let's put that in
perspective. If you put all the residents of Vancouver in it when the city was
incorporated 97 years earlier, you would have 59,000 empty seats.
1985: SkyTrain starts up mid-December.
The initial route, from Vancouver to New Westminster, retraces in part one of
Vancouver's original Interurban lines.
1986: Vancouver's centennial is marked
by the highly successful six-month fair Expo 86 on the north shore of False
Creek. It was the largest special category World Exposition ever staged in North
America -the category was Transportation.
1988: Vancouver holds its first
Vancouver Sun Run, a 10 kilometre run through downtown streets and spectacular
Stanley Park. Now an annual, very popular event, first year's participants were
6500 - by 2003 there were approximately 49,000 runners - a true reflection of
the love of sport in the outdoors!
1990: Vancouver hosted Gay Games III
with some 7,500 athletes from 39 countries participating.
The 1990s began with a roar as the first "Indy"
race took place on the downtown Vancouver track, winding through tight corners,
past apartment complexes, False Creek and Science World. It was an annual event
held each summer, however 2004 was the final year that it took place in
Vancouver.
1993: The first edition of Xtra West,
Vancouver's bi-weekly gay and lesbian newspaper is published.
Woodward's department store, a Canadian retail
institution dating back to 1903, goes bankrupt and closes its doors. Over the
following years, debate regarding reuse of the landmark building or
redevelopment of its property has ranged from the creation of affordable housing
to a downtown parking complex to various retail options. Today, there are
several housing options still being reviewed.
1994: The Vancouver Canucks reach the
Stanley Cup finals but lose in the final moments of the final game. The BC Lions
football team won the Grey Cup for the second time in their history.
1995: The new Vancouver Public Library
building opens and is a landmark within the downtown core. Interestingly,
initial designs had the building facing the opposite direction, with the main
entrance facing Georgia. As they finalized construction plans, someone noticed
that by flipping the design, the main plaza would face the sun rather than being
in the shadow of the main building!
General Motors Place for hockey, basketball and
musical performances, opens and is nicknamed 'The Garage'.
The spiffy Ford Centre for the Performing Arts
opens for what turned out to be for three years before it reopened as The Centre
in Vancouver for Performing Arts, and today offers large-scale theatrical
productions several times a year.
1996: Estimates show the central city's
population had increased by more than 107,000 since 1981-a 26 per cent jump!
The Vancouver Grizzlies joined the NBA, along
with the Toronto Raptors, as part of the league's two-pronged expansion into
Canada. They are the first non-U.S. cities to join the league since 1946-47.
Unfortunately, the Grizzlies were sold in 2001, so Vancouver only got to enjoy
their NBA team for 5 years.
1997: The Chan Centre for the Performing
Arts opens at the University of British Columbia, offering year round
performance by University programs, touring companies and local performers.
1998: Angles magazine ceases
publication.
1999: Vancouver creates the 2010 Olympic
Bid team to organize the proposal to host the 2010 Winter Olympics. By July,
2004, Vancouver is selected!
2000: The annual Polar Bear Swim,
started in 1920 by a local restaurant owner, Peter Pantages, reaches a record of
2,128 swimmers.
2001: It is estimated that 200 movie and
television productions are filmed in Vancouver. Each year, this list grows more
and more substantial, as estimates from 1981 show only 11 productions! Earning
its nickname of 'Hollywood North', celebrity spotting is everywhere - they're
out and about on Vancouver streets, browsing in shops and relaxing in local
restaurants and spas.
2002: The Economist magazine's
Intelligence Unit ties Vancouver and Melbourne as the World's Top City to live
in.
2003: Mercer Human Resource Consulting
rates Vancouver as top city in North America for quality of life.
Vancouver is selected as the Host City for 2010
Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. GM Place broadcasts the announcement live
to a sold out crowd, while celebrations take place across the city.
2004: The hosting of the first large
outdoor public arts show on the streets of Vancouver called 'Orcas in the City'
by the BC Lions Society.
