Formed in 1889, the Union Steamship Company became Vancouver's first home-controlled shipping firm. From this area U.S.C. provided upcoast freight and passenger service and weekend sailings to area resorts. The North Vancouver and West Vancouver cross-harbour ferries also left from here.
Charles Borden (1905-1978) investigated the prehistory of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley. His famous excavation at Locarno Beach discovered evidence of human occupation dating back over 3,000 years.
In 1929 a private syndicate built Vancouver's only indoor saltwater pool. “The Home of Champions” was bought by the Parks Board in 1939 as a part of its plan to acquire all property along English Bay. It was demolished in 1974.
Rev Andrew Roddan (1883-1948) was the Minister of Vancouver's First United Church for almost two decades and a champion of social justice, providing practical help for homeless or unemployed people.
During the Spanish Civil War some 1,200 Canadians joined the International Brigade to support the Spanish government. In 1937 the Brigade recognized the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion from Canada. John C. Chivers recruited about 600 men from a room at 717 Hamilton and an office at 615 West Hastings.
In 1899 the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council purchased the former Homer Street Methodist Church and converted it into Vancouver's first “Labour Temple”. In 1910 the wooden structure was replaced by the present building. It housed various labour organizations and newspapers.
The Vancouver Council of Women was formed on November 10, 1894 at Dunn Hall. Causes it has championed include equal pay for equal work, a consumer's league, the Children's Aid Society and, in 1912, the appointment of Vancouver's (and Canada's) first policewoman.
Established on this site by Catholic nuns in 1894, St. Paul's has been an important element in Vancouver's health core for over ninety years. MiIestones have included the Province's first School of nursing (1907) and an intensive care unit for coronary heart disease.
Ripley recognized this building, constructed in 1913, as the narrowest in the world. Responding to a wager, Chang Toy, owner of the Sam Kee Company, used bay windows and public baths under the sidewalk to maximize development on a site dramatically diminished by city road expropriation.
Prisoners convicted of minor offenses were used to clear land, dig ditches and repair roads. A short strike in January 1897 (against bad weather work) was halted by a “no-work no-food” edict. Use of chain gangs ended in 1905.
In 1932, to relieve traffic disruption in the city core, the C.P.R. built a tunnel to connect its False Creek yards with its Burrard Inlet terminal and wharves. Part of it is now used by the SkyTrain.
In 1922 Ferrera Court was the home of Vancouver tailor David Marks, where vaudeville comedian Benny Kubelsky met thirteen-year-old Sadie Marks. They dated in 1926 and married the next year. As Jack Benny and Mary Livingstone they often returned to the city of her birth.
