Vancouver History: Oddities
By Miss604
I’m a nut for trivia and lesser-known facts. I also love feeding my brain with all kinds of nuggets of information especially when it comes to our fair region. I recently found a new section of my favourite Vancouver history website that features “Oddities“: bits of news that probably weren’t news at the time, but are certainly entertaining (and somewhat puzzling) nowadays. Here’s a sample:
People were a lot more brave 50 years ago, “On December 22, 1958 a French adventurer completed a swim of the Fraser River from Prince George to New Westminster’s Pattullo Bridge. (NOTE: in December!)”
One of my first blog pieces that I sought to write about was regarding the Nine O’clock Gun, “In 1898, on October 15, the Nine O’Clock Gun was fired for the first time in Stanley Park . . . at noon.”
Yikes! “In 1925 a Vancouver branch of the Ku Klux Klan, the racist organization that had originated in the southern USA, used the Tait Mansion in Shaughnessy (aka Glen Brae) as their headquarters. Rent was $150 a month. Today that building is the children’s hospice, Canuck Place.”
We’ve filled in a lot of what used to be ocean and waterways around here ie. False Creek, “In 1924 Lansdowne Track in Richmond opened, named for a former Governor General. The peat bog on which the track was built acted like a sponge and horses ran slower at high tide.”
Tourists, they’ve always been an issue eh? “In 1909 Vancouver took its first mechanized ambulance out for a test drive and ran over and killed an American tourist.”
Insert joke about Surrey chicks here, “In 1930 a world record for egg-laying was set by “No Drone, No. 5H,” a hen from the Whiting farm in Surrey. She had laid 357 eggs in 365 days. “No Drone” was preserved for posterity and her stuffed form put on display at the World Poultry Congress in Rome.”
I’d still buy my CD’s there if I could, “In 1958 a man named Fred Steiner sold his Toronto radio store and moved to Vancouver. He opened a shop here, and called it A&B Sound. Why A&B? A&A was taken. True story.”
It’s good to see not much has changed in the world of mainstream media (this being said after I discovered that the Metro Vancouver has an entire column dedicated to the previous night’s American Idol results): “On December 2, 1953 the Province reported (on the front page): “Bill Stone, 525 East Keith Road, North Vancouver, got his perfect cribbage hand the hard way Tuesday night. Playing with neighbor Bob MacKay, Stone had a king, pair of aces and a four in his hand as well as two fives. So he tossed the fives into his crib. MacKay had 6-7-8-8 and a five and a jack of spades. He threw the five and jack into the crib, the five of spades was cut and thus Stone had his perfect 29 hand.”
Ever wondered just how many tunnels there are under this city? “In 1965 the tunnel at Vancouver’s main Post Office, built to carry mail to the CPR station, was closed permanently for that purpose, having proved impractical. It will be used for storage and creepy movie scenes.”
All of these and more can be found in the Oddities section of Vancouver History.
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January 24th, 2008 at 11:06 am
It’s funny…
I’d heard alot of those stories from my Gram; especially about the tunnels and of the current home of Canucks Place.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:14 am
The KKK? I had no idea. Great info! Thanks!
January 24th, 2008 at 11:21 am
wow, what a great resource! i love hearing about odd little trivia like that.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I remember getting the little things from inside pop caps in chilliwack and winning discounts to A&B sound. Of course, being a kid in chilliwack, I had no idea what an A&B sound was.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Someone once told me there’s an underground tunnel between what’s now the Macaroni Grill on Davie and Balthazar. Apparently Macaroni Grill used to be a hang-out for wealthy criminals, and Balthazar a boarding school for girls. I heard that when the boarding school was low on funds, the headmistress would shuffle her girls in the tunnel to the mansion and rent them out to the wealthy men there.
January 24th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Yeah I heard there was also a tunnel from the Macaroni Grill mansion down to English Bay that was only recently cut off (last 20 years or so)
January 24th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Up until a few years ago, you still used to be able to turn on and off the huge Bow-Mac neon sign on Broadway using a switch on the back (obscured by the goatfuckers at Toys-R-Us. Who fuck goats).
January 24th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Hah, I loved the Nine O’Clock Gun story. Thanks for the list!
January 24th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
You’d be surprised to know that there was a leather tannery in Mount Pleasant (near Broadway and Main). I’ve learned a few other oddities about my neighbourhood (which I should write up and send you as a guest blog post!)
January 24th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Oh dear, did something happen to A&B Sound in my long absence???
January 24th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
It’ll be interesting to see with the current and future expansions to Skytrain where secondary and emergency trackwork and tunnels will go (and then promptly disappear from the public eye).
As a kid, I remember parts of rail tracks in the middle of streets within the brick-embedded pavement in Chinatown/East Vancouver.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
As for all the fill land, take a look at what would be flooded (i.e. pretty much all of Richmond and Delta, lots of other places too) if sea levels rise 4 m (Google Maps mashup).
Also, there is a rail tunnel few people know about that runs from the train bridge at Second Narrows right underneath northwest Burnaby. It emerges near the McDonald’s HQ by Brentwood, near Hwy 1.
And is the tunnel under the Post Office the same one now used by the SkyTrain?
January 26th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Oh, and if you look at the Google Map for the area around Tinseltown, you can see the diagonal line where the railway used to run across Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside to the waterfront. The main axis of the mall atrium follows what used to be the railroad right of way.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:31 am
[...] that my last few posts were pretty bullet-pointed so I apologize for yet another. The first Vancouver History: Oddities entry was well-received so here’s [...]