Happy Birthday Vancouver!* (125 years)

Incorporated 1886: and at that time the Population was 1000.

Panoramic view of Vancouver, wiki photo

At the first council meeting - one of the first items on the agenda was to procure 1000 acres of military reserve land from the Federal government for a park. This Park is now called "Stanley Park" - Vancouver's equivalent to Central Park in NYC.

May 28 a volunteer fire department was formed, and sixteen days later, Vancouver city was decimated by fire in 20 minutes. Up to 28 people died and one thousand wood structured buildings were obliterated.

Back then, the sidewalks were also wood, which along with the wood framed buildings, were fuel to the fast moving fire. The volunteer fire department only had buckets and shovels to work with which obviously limited their effectiveness.

The city was demolished, but not the spirit of those surviving it.

One week after the fire, a steam pump with four rolls of hose was ordered and sent from Port Moody, hauled over miles of dusty dirt roads by a team of horses.

Ten days later there was another large fire - at a fish oil plant - the firemen had to pull the fire pump to the site themselves, due to a lack of horses. They weren't able to save the building, but they were able to contain the fire and save what was left of the City...not that there was much left to save.

City hall was set up in a tent.

City of Vancouver archives photo

Vancouver city police were hired, and badges were made from USA silver dollars - one side smoothed flat and VCP engraved over top and a pin clasp soldered on the reverse side.  They needed the police to enforce the newly passed bylaws, one of which was that bicycles must limit their speed to 8 mph.

The Oppenheimer family, Jewish immigrants from Germany - via California - started a food wholesale business in a brick building they built downtown .  This building is now Bryan Adams recording studio - the oldest brick building in the city.

Personally, after living in the old 1912 brick building in the West End, I doubt that I would risk it in such an earthquake prone area.  That's just asking for trouble.

The 1886 census taken shows that men outnumbered women - 2/3 of the population were male -  the average age - 26.   Interestingly enough, in those days of census taking - there was found to be more "dressmakers"in town than any other occupation for women. 

In 1886 - "dressmaker" was the euphemism for "prostitute".....due to the sensitivities of the census takers.

Two years after the great fire, St Luke's hospital was opened by the mayor (one of the Oppenheimers) and the first Nursing School was established and run by Sister Frances Redmond.

Frances Redmond did her formal nurse/midwife training at Laval University, Quebec, and moved to Vancouver with her husband Dr. Wm Charles Redmond of the Royal Navy Reserve.  She practiced Midwifery and Nursing in the homes of her patients in the community and supervised nursing students, working from the Hospital which was then connected to St James Anglican church.

Fifteen years after it's incorporation, the population had increased to a little under 14 thousand persons.

Today, the population is almost 600K in Vancouver proper, and a little over 2 million in Metro Vancouver.

Wiki picture

My father was a journeyman carpenter and worked on many of the now-prominent buildings in Downtown Vancouver before moving to the Interior to fulfill his dream of building his own Resort....his best friend was an architect who designed many Vancouver buildings.  My father's brother was an Ironworker and worked on many of the highrises and bridges in the area.

I myself was born in the Landmark Hospital of St. Paul's in the West end - one of the very few who can say they are *actually* from Vancouver.

St Paul's Hospital wiki photo

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*Reference material for this blog taken from an article in the Sun and also the History of Metropolitan Vancouver website and the BC history of nursing website.