The movie, Disraeli, starring George Arliss, premiered at the
Dominion Theatre in 1929.
It was not immediately appealing, so the theatre ran a contest for
boys and girls — they had to see the movie, then write a 500-word
essay on it, or paint a picture of Disraeli, and the winner got a
silver loving cup.
Chronology Continued
[1757
- 1884] [1885 - 1891] [1892
- 1899]
[1900 - 1905] [1906
- 1908] [1909] [1910]
[1911] [1912]
[1913] [1914]
[1915] [1916]
[1917] [1918]
[1919] [1920]
[1921] [1922]
[1923] [1924]
[1925] [1926]
[1927] [1928]
[1929] [1930]
[1931] [1932] [1933]
[1934]
[1935] [1936]
[1937] [1938]
[1939] [1940]
[1941] [1942]
[1943] [1944]
[1945] [1946]
[1947] [1948]
[1949] [1950]
[1951] [1952]
[1953] [1954]
[1955] [1956]
[1957] [1958]
[1959] [1960]
[1961] [1962]
[1963] [1964]
[1965]
[1966] [1967]
[1968]
[1969] [1970]
[1971] [1972]
[1973] [1974]
[1975] [1976]
[1977] [1978]
[1979] [1980]
[1981] [1982]
[1983] [1984]
[1985] [1986]
[1987] [1988]
[1989] [1990]
[1991] [1992]
[1993] [1994]
1929
You can sponsor this
year in the book! Click here for details.
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You'll note that this year includes events listed under "Also
in . . ." These are events for which we don't have a specific
date. If YOU know the
specific date of an event shown there, please
notify us . . . and cite the source! Many thanks!
*******************************************
January 1 Today, the municipalities of Point
Grey and South Vancouver amalgamated with the city, and overnight
Vancouver—with its expanded population of about 240,000—became
Canada’s third largest city. (Its southern boundary had been
16th Avenue.) To the 22,047 school population of Vancouver were
added 8,940 pupils from South Vancouver and 6,404 from Point Grey.
 Also January 1 Alfred Wallace, shipbuilder,
died in North Vancouver aged 63. He was born in 1865. His obituary
in the Province said he was born in Devonport, Devonshire, England
—although we have also seen Moricetown, England as a birthplace.
He came to Canada in 1889. Two years later he was building fishing
boats in False Creek. He started Wallace Shipyards in 1905 and ran
it for more than 20 years. In 1921, Wallace built the Princess Louise
for the CPR fleet, the first contract awarded to a local firm. During
WWI the company built merchant and naval vessels. Wallace married
the former Elizabeth Underhill, and they had two sons; one, Clarence,
who had joined Burrard Dry Dock in 1918 as secretary-treasurer,
took over the business after his father’s death. By the end
of WWII it was Canada’s biggest shipbuilding firm.
January 2 The first meeting of the new Vancouver
city council following the amalgamation was held today. W.H. Malkin,
a wholesale grocer, was the first mayor of the larger city. Malkin
paid a warm tribute to his predecessor, L.D. Taylor, giving him
credit for the amalgamation. Malkin’s two years in office would
be efficient, if unexciting.
Also January 2 Ballantyne Pier opened.
February 6 John Hess Elliott, pioneer, died
in Vancouver, aged 65. He was born April 3, 1863 in Butler County,
Pennsylvania. He arrived in Vancouver in 1898 at age 35. In addition
to building numerous homes in the Fairview neighbourhood at the
turn of the century, Elliott is known for helping to establish Savary
Island as a vacation destination. In 1910 he served as a founding
director of the Savary Island Park Association and built one of
the first homes on the island. By the early 1920s his summer home
had become the island's first school. When the First World War began
he enlisted with the 242nd Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force.
At the astonishing age of 53 he chose to fight in the trenches of
Europe alongside men less than half his age. He was severely wounded
in battle and, shell-shocked, was unable to remember his own name.
Evacuated to a hospital in England, Elliott remained unidentified
until a fellow soldier recognized him and sent word home to his
wife and family that he was alive. He was brought back to Vancouver
on a stretcher, a decorated veteran. (Raymond Reitsma)
February 7 Colored motion pictures (without
artificial tinting) were shown for the first time in Vancouver at
Kodak's store on Granville Street.
February 14 Daniel Loftus Beckingsale, Vancouver’s
first port doctor, died in London England, aged 82. He was born
November 18, 1846 on the Isle of Wight. He became an MD in 1874,
and served on several London hospital staffs. He came to Vancouver
in June 1886, became the first port doctor and an early health officer.
Beckingsale formed the Vancouver Reading Room, predecessor of the
public library. He moved to Nelson in 1894, to San Francisco in
1905. In 1916, he was practising in Wales.
February 14 St. Valentine’s Day massacre
in Chicago, when Al Capone’s gang killed seven members of a
rival organization.
February 25 Alfred St. George Hamersley, Vancouver's
first solicitor, died in Bournemouth, Eng. He was born October 8,
1848 in Oxfordshire, Eng., was called to the bar in 1873. He practiced
law in New Zealand, arrived in Vancouver in 1888. He became legal
advisor to Vancouver City Corporation and the CPR. Hamersley was
active in local business and athletics, once sold some Mt. Pleasant
property—the southeast corner of Fraser Street and East 11th
Avenue—to fellow Freemason, writer Rudyard Kipling. In 1906
he returned to Rycot, Eng., and was elected a Liberal MP (1910-18).
Mid-March Construction of the 25-storey Marine
Building by E. J. Ryan Contracting began when Vancouver mayor W.H.
Malkin blew a blast from a golden whistle, setting in motion a steam
shovel that began the excavation. The beautiful structure, designed
by McCarter & Nairne, would open in 1930.
March 31 Actor Lee Patterson was born in Vancouver.
His movie-making career spanned the years from the mid-’50s
to the mid-’90s.
April 6 The city of Hope was incorporated.
May 1 The Province reported that UBC was opening
a course in Commerce. The Vancouver Board of Trade was cited as
among the bodies pushing for it.
May 6 The first “Oscars” were awarded
in Hollywood.
May 17 Vancouver voters approved 14 of 20
money bylaws, but rejected a Burrard Bridge and a new city hall.
May 20 The Union College Library was okayed.
There is a nice sketch of the building (architects Sharp and Thompson)
in the May 20, 1929 Journal of Commerce, Page 1.
May 30 The new North Shore Hospital opened.
Also May 30 The city bought Little Mountain
(now Queen Elizabeth Park) for $115,270.
May 31 An ad for Piggly Wiggly stores in the
Province showed 28 locations in Vancouver, one in West Vancouver,
one in Victoria, one in New Westminster. The chain would be purchased
in 1936 by Safeway. Safeway arrived in Canada this year, just three
years after its 1926 birth in Maryland.
June 1 Uncle Ben’s Sun Ray Club started.
This was a “club” for kids whose parents read the Sun.
Also June 1 An artist’s conception of
the new (second) Stock Exchange Building in Vancouver appeared in
the Sun. The building would be at the northwest corner of Pender
and Howe Streets. What an unpleasant surprise they have coming in
about five months!
June 3 The daily comic strip Tarzan first
appeared in the Sun.
Also June 3 The Peter Pan Restaurant opened
at 1128 Granville. Said the Sun: “Thousands Inspect
New Cafe.” A photo showed the staff lined up out front. This
restaurant, soon to become a city landmark, was started by Peter
Pantages of Polar Bear Swim fame.
Also June 3 The Orpheum Theatre (the present
one) ran an ad for a new Mary Pickford film: Coquette, “her
first 100% Talking Picture, and the usual big bill of Radio-Keith-Orpheum
Vaudeville.” Incidentally, the theatre was now called the RKO
Orpheum.
June 5 The Journal of Commerce announced that
the Bank of Nova Scotia would build a new branch at the northeast
corner of Granville and Davie Streets. Today that building is Vancouver’s
Dance Centre.
June 6 Daily Province, Page 2 “The
old red building on the west side of Main street, near the corner
of Hastings, which for forty years has served successively as public
market, public auditorium and City Hall, will enter public service
again about the middle of this month, when additional quarters for
the public library are opened there . . .” (The central library
was in the Carnegie Library building adjacent to the north.) The
main library would occupy this site until the opening in 1957 of
the building at 750 Burrard Street.
Also June 6 News report: Kingsway between
Knight and Broadway was to be widened from 66 feet to 99.
June 7 News report: The Railway Board instructed
the CPR to eliminate level crossings in the city by October 1. The
railway argued that the crossings were not a nuisance. Drivers and
pedestrians disagreed: trains blocking downtown streets were causing
traffic nightmares. The railway would have to build a tunnel. Today
that tunnel is used by SkyTrain.
Also June 7 John Napier Turner was born in
Richmond, Surrey, England. He would become one of Canada’s
shortest-serving prime ministers: 80 days in 1984.
June 10 The Sun reported that the proposed
Canadian National Hotel, the present Hotel Vancouver, would be expanded.
One hundred extra rooms would be added. The hotel would be 16 storeys
high. (Several such stories would appear during the hotel’s
construction. It kept getting bigger and bigger, until the Depression
came along.)
June 12 G. F. Baldwin, a city pioneer, died.
He was a former city comptroller, and the first city clerk.
June 13 In 1925 Vancouver city council named
June 13 as Vancouver Day—a time of remembrance and thanksgiving,
inspired by the Great Fire of June 13, 1886—and it was arranged
that each year as a part of the Vancouver Day ceremonies there would
be held, “on the Sunday closest to the anniversary of the fire,
a service in Stanley Park . . .” At the 1929 ceremony a band
played a march especially written for the event by Lt. E.J. Cornfield.
This tradition was short-lived: the 1929 event seems to be the last
time “Vancouver Day” occurred. (But city archives worker
Donna Jean McKinnon and others revived it for one occasion in 1998.)
Also June 13 It was reported that Jones Tent
& Awning of Vancouver had just started to manufacture, for the
first time in Canada, Venetian blinds.
Also June 13 It was announced that Vancouver’s
chief constable, W.J. Bingham, would be given a three-year contract
and an increase in pay to $6,000 a year.
June 17 The Journal of Commerce reported that
tenders had been called by the Royal Bank for the property at the
northeast corner of Hastings and Granville. That corner had been
occupied for many years first by jeweler George Trorey, then by
Birks. The Royal Bank building is there to this day.
June 28 Bids were called for a bridge over
the Capilano River in West Vancouver.
July 13 A race was held in Vancouver with
some of the world’s top runners, including Olympic gold medalist
Percy Williams of Vancouver. Two days later, on July 15, this appeared
in the Vancouver Sun: “Eddie Tolan of the University
of Michigan, 100 and 200 yard sprint champion of the United States,
today charged he was the victim of a ‘hometown decision’
when he was adjudged beaten by Percy Williams in Vancouver last
week. Tolan made the statement while passing through Windsor. He
said he had pictures which show him leading Williams by close to
a foot at the finish.”
The three top official finishers on that “muddy
horse race track” were (1) Percy Williams (2) Eddie Tolan,
and (3) Frank Wykoff.
For more details on this disputed race, go here.
Tolan is the black man second from left, Williams
is next to him, and Wykoff is the airborne fellow second from right.
Look at the feet of Tolan and Williams. You may not be able to see
it in this reproduction, but the tape that marks the finish line
is chest-high to the runners and Williams may have hit it first
with his chest pushed forward.
July 27 On a tour of North America following
his famous solo flight across the Atlantic Charles Lindbergh, visiting
Seattle, refused an invitation from Vancouver mayor L.D. Taylor
to fly into Vancouver because, said Lindbergh today, “your
airport isn’t fit to land on.” That embarrassed Vancouver,
and prompted the push to build one that was! It would open in 1931.
Also July 27 The Union Steamship wharf burned.
July The provincial exhibition buildings in
New Westminster—the fair was due to open in September—burned
down. They would use big tents instead.
July Ladner had its own Chinatown, the scene
of a serious fire in July 1929. The settlement stretched along the
river front and consisted of more than a dozen buildings. Half were
destroyed in the blaze, which was reported in the Ladner Optimist
newspaper: “Fanned by a tremendous wind, the fire burned like
lightning through the dry wood and the damage was all done before
firefighting equipment from Vancouver could reach the scene. Calls
for help came soon after the blaze was discovered. Its origin is
unknown.”
August 7 The first annual B.C. High Schools
Olympiad opened at Hastings Park.
August 8 Samuel Maclure, architect, died in
Victoria aged 69. He was born April 11, 1860 in New Westminster.
The son of a Royal Engineer, he was a brother of Sara Anne McLagan
(see this site’s Hall
of Fame). He is considered the most gifted of early
B.C. architects. Maclure designed some 150 buildings either alone,
with his firm, or in partnership with others. He designed many Shaughnessy
Heights homes before WWI. Read Samuel Maclure: Architect by Janet
Bingham and The Architecture of Samuel Maclure by Leonard K. Eaton.
August 24 Boeing of Canada opened a plant
on Coal Harbour. They bought the Hoffar-Beeching Shipyard at 1927
West Georgia. In 1930 they would begin to build planes. (We also
have a September 1 date.) And see the Taconite item below.
August 25 Dateline, London: “And now
after the talkie comes the ‘tele-talkie.’ The first successful
demonstration of broadcasting a talkie movie by means of television
and ordinary broadcasting equipment was carried out here by Major
John Logie Baird, inventor of television. In a television theatre
he produced a talking picture broadcast from a room at the other
end of the building. It might just as well have been 200 or 300
miles away . . .” Baird goes on to claim that soon he will
be able to broadcast complete talkies so that everyone can see and
hear them in the privacy of their homes, “but will also send
out talkie current events in which one can see and hear football
games or horse races, or scenes in parliament.” (Watching football
games from hundreds of miles away? Sounds like a pipe dream to us!)
August 27 Well, it sounded good: some local
histories indicate that the Graf Zeppelin, the most famous airship
of the 1920s, visited Vancouver—specifically, Coal Harbour—on
August 27, 1929. Alas, a closer examination of papers of the day
revealed the truth: She didn’t get here. “Plans of Dr.
Hugo Eckener to bring the Graf Zeppelin over Vancouver and Seattle,"
the Province reported, "were upset by two occurrences. Dense
fog in the North Pacific forced the airship south in order to get
her bearings, and a slight attack of ptomaine poisoning caused the
commander to hasten to Los Angeles.” The huge airship had just
completed “one of the most spectacular flights of all time,
a non-stop 5,800 miles across the Pacific Ocean from Japan . . .”
It had taken just over 78 hours.
September 1 Vaudeville was drawing smaller
audiences all across North America. Operation of the Orpheum Theatre
in Vancouver (the present one) was from this date shared by former
competitors Orpheum Circuit and Famous Players. The circuit management
would finally accept the decline and fall of vaudeville and sell
the theatre outright to Famous Players in 1931 as a movie house.
Vaudeville could still be enjoyed for a few more years in Vancouver,
mainly at the Beacon Theatre, but its glory days were over.
September 2 Did you know Winston Churchill
was once here? Back on September 2, 1929 Winnie—described as
“the former chancellor of the exchequer and holder of a dozen
other cabinet positions in Great Britain”—arrived in New
Westminster to open its exhibition. (A fire in July had forced the
exhibition’s organizers to house its displays in large tents.)
Some 40,000 people turned up to see Churchill. The following day
he travelled to Haney “for an inspection of British Columbia’s
lumber industry.” His host was the Hon. Nels Lougheed, provincial
MLA and an executive of the Abernethy Lougheed Logging company,
who gave him a demonstration of B.C. logging methods.
Next on Winnie’s agenda? A trip up Grouse Mountain
where he dined at the chalet.
Churchill, on a tour of North America, was accompanied
by his son Randolph, his brother Jack and Jack’s son John.
September 3 Churchill gave a talk at the Vancouver
Theatre on Granville Street.
September 26 Francis Bowser, a Point Grey
pioneer, died in Vancouver at age 71. He was born September 13,
1858 in Kingston (now Rexton), NB. He was called a “trail blazer
of Point Grey.” He served as a reeve of Point Grey.
September 27 Point Grey Secondary opened.
October 1 The Anglican Theological College
opened.
October 4 In the Vancouver Archives is a hand-written
letter, dated Oct. 4, 1929, carefully inscribed by Lauchlan Hamilton
(77 at the time) during a brief visit to the city. Hamilton was
a CPR surveyor who laid out much of downtown Vancouver. His letter’s
addressed to J. Alex Walker of the town planning commission. It
was written more than 40 years after his survey.
“I cannot say that I am proud of the original
planning of Vancouver," Hamilton writes, after explaining that
the shortness of his visit precludes a personal meeting with Walker.
"The work, however, was beset with many difficulties. The dense
forest, the inlets on the north and False Creek on the south, the
pinching in of the land at Carrall Street . . .” and so on,
and so on.
If you look at a map of Vancouver, you'll note that
east-west streets such as Hastings and Pender turn at an angle as
they pass Cambie and enter the downtown peninsula. Presumably Hamilton
didn't want to have the streets make that bend because, in his letter
to Walker, he complains of a severe problem: His “original
plan” for the direction of the streets in the city's downtown
peninsula had to be altered. It seems a property owner named Pratt
refused to go along with Hamilton's design. What that design was
we haven't discovered after several hours of research.
The Archives has a collection of field survey books
used by Hamilton and those working for him. It's fascinating to
leaf through those brittle, yellowing pages and see the pencilled
notes and drawings made nearly 120 years ago as the surveyors decide
to cut a “Granville Street” through here and a “Nelson
Street” through there. The pages are covered with scribbled
computations and little memos, each street plan carefully dated:
The survey of Granville south of Nelson, for example, began March
15, 1885. The corner of Cambie and Hastings was laid out on April
30, 1886. If you're a surveyor and you haven't seen these little
books, by all means visit the Archives and ask to have a look.
October 18 The Supreme Court of Canada ruled
today that women are, after all, “persons.” A word of
explanation: in April of 1928 the Supreme Court of Canada had ruled
that women were not “persons.” The judges expanded on
the judgement, ruling that “by the common law of England, women
were under a legal incapacity to hold public office.” That
paternalistic ruling was overturned today, thanks in part to crusaders
like Nellie McClung and Emily Murphy.
October 24 Panic on Wall Street.
October 25 The New York Stock Exchange collapsed
and launched a severe economic crisis in the USA and, not long after,
Canada and much of the rest of the Western world. The Great Depression
had begun. Volume on the Vancouver Stock Exchange was143 million
shares this year. That would drop to 10 million in 1930.
Also October 25 “Vancouver will have
no skyscrapers,” the Province wrote, “if the City Council
accepts the advice of its Town Planning Commission . . . This morning
the commission again endorsed the provision of the city charter
which requires all buildings to be within ten storeys in height
or 120 feet.”
December 3 The Commodore Cabaret opened on
Granville Street. Owners Nick Kogas and John Dillias began a tradition
of showcasing local bands and international touring artists. (The
club’s known today as the Commodore Ballroom.)
December 14 Henry Tracy Ceperley, realtor,
died in Coronado Beach, Calif. at age 79. He was born January 10,
1850 in Oreonto, NY, arrived in Vancouver around 1885. Ceperley
Rounsefell & Co. (est. 1886), became one of B.C.'s largest real
estate/insurance firms. In 1887 the company was renamed Ross and
Ceperley Real Estate, Insurance and Financial Agents, with Ceperley
in partnership with Arthur Wellington Ross. Ceperley encouraged
the CPR's William Van Horne to promote the idea of Stanley Park
in Ottawa. (That land was a federally owned military reserve.) Ross
and Ceperley controlled much of the land near the park, promoted
it heavily after the conversion. The park opened September 27, 1889.
Ceperley’s Deer Lake home is now the Burnaby Art Gallery.
December 17 Unemployed men raided the city
relief office in Vancouver. The effects of the Great Depression
were beginning to be felt locally.
Also December 17 The Empress of Japan II
was launched. This famous liner was an advance over the Empress
of Canada: she was 13 feet longer, six feet wider, more luxurious,
even faster and much less expensive to operate. Unfortunately, the
world-wide depression impacted badly on both passenger and cargo
numbers for the Empress line and the service would end in a few
years.
December 18 Burnaby's first street lighting
was turned on, illuminating Hastings Street from Boundary to Gilmore.
December 28 An American city planner named
Harland Bartholomew, commissioned by Vancouver to suggest the course
of its future development, submitted his plans. Bartholomew planned
for a city of one million people focused on the “great seaport”
of Burrard Inlet. The Fraser River banks and False Creek would be
industrial. Businesses would spread evenly over the central business
district to “prevent undue traffic congestion.” The nearby
West End would provide apartments close to jobs. “The Bartholomew
Plan,” city planner Dr. Ann McAfee has written, “was never
formally adopted by City Council. Nevertheless, over the years,
much of Bartholomew's vision was realized.” The most well-known
evidence of the “Bartholomew Plan” today is the central
boulevard down Cambie Street, south of King Edward. For more, click
here.
December 31 A former ballerina, later dance
promoter and organizer, Jean Orr was born in Edinburgh. She would
become a major force in local dance.
December Construction started on the Empire
State Building in New York City.
Also in 1929
The Vancouver Unemployed Worker's Association was
formed..
Earle “Mr. Good Evening” Kelly started
his broadcasts for the Province’s radio station CKCD. He earned
that nickname for his lugubrious introduction to his program. Kelly
became known as Canada's first personality broadcaster. Gord Lansdell
has an excellent short bio of him on the Ryerson University website.
J. W. Allan was president of the Vancouver Real Estate
Board.
UBC's Social Work program began, the third university
social work program established in Canada after Toronto's (1914).
The West Vancouver ferry system, once a drag on the
city’s finances, was now thriving.
The White Rock area of Surrey experienced a financial
setback when the local lumber mill closed because of a log shortage.
In 1922 fishing licences to “other than white,
British subjects and Indians” had been cut by up to 40 per
cent. Local Japanese fishermen took their case to court and won,
but the provincial government enacted legislation to allow the discrimination
to continue. The case went to the Privy Council in England in 1929.
The fishermen won, but only half of them were still around by the
time the decision was handed down.
The Randall Building, at 535-565 West Georgia, was
built. So was the Dick Building at 1482-1490 West Broadway (the
ornate structure at the southeast corner of Granville), and the
Bank of Commerce at 817-819 Granville. All are heritage buildings
today, preserved for their historic and architectural value.
Construction began on the present (third) Hotel Vancouver.
It would not open until 1939.
J. Alexander (Sandy) Walker began a long stretch
as Vancouver’s town planning engineer. He would serve to 1952.
The Georgia Medical-Dental Building, the first art
deco-style building erected in Vancouver, was built at the northwest
corner of Georgia and Hornby Streets. It was richly embellished
with whimsical ornaments like plump little terra cotta owls and
other birds, lions and horses. The building was adorned with medical,
religious and mythological symbols around the main door. Most of
its tenants were doctors, dentists and the like. Easily the most
famous ornaments on the building were three 11-foot high terra cotta
statues of nursing sisters in First World War uniforms, one perched
on each of the building’s three visible corners. A local gag—inspired
by the medical use of the building—was that they were the three
Rhea sisters: Gono, Dia and Pyo. The Georgia Medical-Dental Building
was designed by architects McCarter and Nairne, whose even more
famous Marine Building began to be built this year. The handsome
old Medical-Dental structure was demolished May 28, 1989 by a controlled
explosion (viewed by a huge throng in the surrounding streets),
following an intense but unsuccessful public campaign to save it.
Replicas of the nurses can be seen at Joe Tinucci’s Ital Decor
location at 6886 East Hastings Street. Check
out this site.
A kindergarten was renting Glen Brae, the Shaughnessy
mansion, for $75 a month.
The Tyee Ski Club was formed, is now one of the oldest
ski clubs in Canada. By the mid-1930s, the mountain had its first
rope tow. Since then, organized skiing and ski racing have flourished
at Grouse
Mountain.
The Holden Building on East Hastings, built in 1911,
became Vancouver’s city hall. It would hold that title until
the opening of the current city hall in 1936. (This was also a home
temporarily to the city’s archives.)
The Holden Building had been preceded as city hall
by a now-vanished building immediately adjacent to the south of
the Carnegie Library on the west side of Main Street. It was city
hall from 1897 to 1929.
Artist Mary Riter Hamilton, aged about 56, arrived
in Vancouver. She taught art here. She was a WWI battlefield artist,
and there are samples of her work here.
Frances Street in Vancouver’s East End was named
this year after Sister Frances, a pioneer nurse at St. Luke's Home
and St. James Church on Cordova St.
Smoky Tom Island was purchased by George C. Reifel,
and became Reifel Island.
The Alpine Club of Canada conducted a ski tour of
Mount Seymour, and vigorous development followed.
Located at 140th Street and 96th Avenue in Surrey,
the 640 acres of Green Timbers have become a memorial to what once
was a larger natural forest of giant evergreens soaring to 200 feet
and more in height. Writes Terri Clark of the Vancouver Parks Board
in The Greater Vancouver Book, “Green Timbers was, at the turn
of the century, the only remaining stretch of virgin forest between
San Diego and Vancouver. Tourists would come from all over to view
these cathedral-like groves in a 5,000-acre refuge. Despite proposals
to have the forest declared a park, Green Timbers was clear-cut
in 1929, the entire population of trees lost to feed a local sawmill.”
Built from 1889 to 1895, Christ Church, the oldest
surviving church in the City of Vancouver, became a cathedral this
year. The Anglican cathedral stands at the northeast corner
of Georgia and Burrard.
Construction began on the East Lawn Building at Essondale
(now Riverview) Hospital.
The Randall Building was constructed on West Georgia.
(Since being rehabilitated in 1991, it’s now known as the Cavelti
Building, 555 West Georgia, after jeweller Toni Cavelti.)
Members of the Cambrian Society, named after the
Cambrian Hills in Wales, built a community hall at 215 East 17th
Avenue. Writes Kevin Griffin, in The Greater Vancouver Book,
“This is believed to be the only hall built and operated by
a Welsh society in North America . . . [The] hall became the home
of the annual Eisteddfod, a competitive singing and reciting festival,
and the Gymanfa Ganu, a hymn singing festival.”
The Womens' Auxiliary of the St. George Orthodox
Hellenic Community was founded.
A branch of the Slovenian Society was opened in Vancouver.
North Vancouver General Hospital opened on 13th Street.
The Jewish Western Bulletin, a weekly newspaper on
the Jewish community in Vancouver, began publication.
The Swedish Press/Nya Svenska Pressen, a bilingual
monthly newspaper, began publication.
The Taconite, a luxury yacht, was built for William
Boeing. She was all teak and 125 feet in length. The Taconite was
built at the Hoffar-Beeching Shipyard, adjacent to the Boeing aircraft
plant on Coal Harbour. (She’s still in Vancouver, still looks
beautiful, thanks to her current owner, Gordon Levett.)
The Vancouver Publicity Bureau (precursor to Tourism
Vancouver) announced that “money expended to advertise the
tourist attractions of the city brought better returns than that
expended on advertising for new industries.”
George Godwin’s novel The Eternal Forest under
Western Skies, set in Whonnock, appeared. It was reissued in 1994
by Godwin Books as The Eternal Forest. See
this site.
Writer Peter Newman of Deep Cove was born in Vienna.
The provincial Public Library Commission applied
for, and received, a grant of $100,000 from the Carnegie Corporation
to test an idea for five years: providing library services to a
rural population. The result, still active: the Fraser Valley Public
Library.
Davey Black, the club pro at the Shaughnessy Golf
Club, with Duncan Sutherland, beat world-famous Walter Hagen and
Horton Smith at the Point Grey Golf Club.
Mary Louise Bollert, UBC's dean of women, became
president of the Confederation of University Women.
Ivan Ackery, in 1929 the manager of the Dominion
Theatre, premiered the movie Disraeli there. It led to his first
promotion award. (He would win many more over the years.) “George
Arliss,” Ivan wrote in his autobiography, “a well-known
stage actor for many, many years, won the Oscar for his leading
role in the film and it was a splendid movie. But it was not immediately
appealing, so we had to work hard to get big audiences. I ran a
contest for boys and girls—they had to see the movie, then
write a 500-word essay on it, or paint a picture of Disraeli, and
the winner got a silver loving cup. The Vancouver Star made a big
feature of the contest, and O.B. Allan’s jewelry store devoted
a whole window to displaying the prizes and the winning entries.
It created a lot of interest.”
The Pacific National Exhibition opened its first
permanent amusement park, with rides and games. It was near the
race track and was dubbed ‘Happyland.’ It would last to
the end of the 1957 season, be replaced in 1958 by the bigger ‘Playland.’
The Essondale Hospital fire department bought a new
ladder and pumper truck. They will use it for 40 years!
Here’s one of the smaller events that will pepper
The History of Metropolitan Vancouver when it appears in
2008: in 1929 a small house was built in South Surrey in what is
now the Sawyers Walk subdivision. It was called the Rankin House
after its original owner. The company that developed the subdivision,
Portrait Homes, decided not to demolish the little charmer, but
to upgrade it. They called on Shell Busey, whose radio and TV shows
on home improvement have been popular for years, and Shell got the
members of his HouseSmart Referral Network involved. The beautifully
restored home was purchased moments after the restoration was complete,
and the net proceeds—$75,000—were donated to the CKNW
Orphans’ Fund. And Shell and Portrait Homes won an award from
the Greater Vancouver Home Builders' Association for the restoration.
Canadian Pacific Railway started having “Hudson”
type steam locomotives built this year by the Montreal Locomotive
Works Company in Montreal. One of them is B.C.’s well-known
Royal Hudson. Before production halted in 1940 MLW built 65 of these
powerful and marvellously fast engines. (The last model produced
had a top speed of more than 144 kilometres per hour.)
The building known as Union Station from 1917 to
1928 — housing the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads
— changed its name after Northern Pacific passenger service
to Vancouver ended. From 1929 it would simply be the Great Northern
Station. Great Northern passenger trains continued to use it until
1962 and the building would be demolished in 1965. It stood just
north of today's Pacific Central train and bus terminal.
The CPR puts on a Sea Music Festival. We have no
details yet.
UBC's first gymnasium, built with funds raised by
students, was presented to the university.
Masumi Mitsui and his family settled in Port Coquitlam
this year and established a poultry farm on Laurier Avenue. Mitsui
had distinguished himself in the First World War, fighting for Canada,
and had won a medal for bravery. See April 1917.
London, England-born William George Murrin, who had
joined the B.C. Electric Railway (BCER) in 1913 as mechanical superintendent,
became president. He would hold that office until 1946.
James M. McGavin became president of McGavin Bakeries.
He will hold that title until his retirement in 1947.
Thomas Plimley, pioneer Vancouver auto dealer, died
in Victoria aged about 58. He was born in 1871 in Walsall, Eng.
He started a bicycle business in Victoria in 1893, the year he arrived
from England. He sold the first car in Victoria, a tiller-steered
Oldsmobile, in 1901. His wife Rhoda was the first woman driver in
Victoria. Plimley sold the Swift, Coventry, Humber, Rover, two-cylinder
Buick and the air-cooled Franklin. Plimley Motors on Howe Street
was one of B.C.'s largest dealerships. His grandson Basil (born
June 21, 1924 in Victoria) was one of the few third-generation executives
of a B.C. business. The Plimley companies closed in 1991, after
98 years.
United Church minister Andrew Roddan is appointed
to Vancouver's First United Church, "the church of the open
door." Roddan was an early advocate of low rent and housing
projects in the East End, welfare services for the poor and a fresh
air camp on Gambier Island. He will become locally prominent, partly
because of his radio sermons.
The long-sought-after Pacific Highway neared approval,
and Canada and the State of Washington agreed this year to place
the proposed highway and the port of entry near the Peace Arch.
This is a rare, perhaps unique, example of a major highway being
placed to provide access to a public memorial.
Peter Righter died at age 77. He was the man at the
throttle when locomotive #374 brought the first Canadian Pacific
Railway passenger train into Vancouver May 23, 1887. He was stationed
in Port Moody in 1887, so his historic journey was rather short!
Righter had worked for the CPR since the early 1870s when he arrived
in Montreal from his native New Jersey. By 1881 he was working on
the railway's western division out of Winnipeg. For several years
after his 1887 adventure, Righter served on the CPR line between
Vancouver and Kamloops. In 1901, at age 49, an injury forced him
to retire. In 1918, at age 66, he married. He was survived by his
wife and a daughter.
Ben Wosk, future furniture merchant, born March 19,
1913 in Vradiavka, Russia, arrived at Vancouver in 1929 from Russia
with his family.
Arrow Transportation Systems Inc. was incorporated.
After an astonishing 42 years as chief of the Vancouver
Fire Department, J.H. Carlisle retired. He was succeeded as chief
by C.W. Thompson.
Annie Jamieson was first elected to the Vancouver
School Board. She would be elected again and again, served to 1946.
An elementary school in Vancouver is named for her.
The head office of the Workman’s Compensation
Board (it was still called that then) moved from 402 Pender Street
to 411 Dunsmuir. That latter building is occupied today by a seniors’
services building.
Popeye, the Sailor Man, made his first appearance.
Kodak made its first 16 mm film.
The Lady Van, a racing yacht affiliated with the
Royal Vancouver Yacht Club won the 1929 Lipton Cup, defeating a
Seattle crew. See 1928 for more detail on the boat.
Charles Montgomery Tate, Methodist missionary, celebrated
the 50th anniversary of his service as a Methodist priest. He was
a missionary to the first church in Vancouver built by Native residents
(1876). Tate was affiliated with St. Andrews Wesley-United Church.
Here are the Vancouver radio stations listed in the
city directory for 1929:
CHLS Province Commercial, 198 West Hastings
CJOR Commercial Broadcasting Service, 212-1040 West
Georgia
CKCD Vancouver Daily Province, 198 West Hastings
CKFC Radio Station, West 12th Avenue at Hemlock
CKMO Sprott Shaw 336 West Hastings
CKWX Sparks Co., 801 West Georgia
CNRV Canadian National Railways, 1150 Main Street
1929 Oakland 4 Door Sedan
All American 6
Continued.....
[1757
- 1884] [1885 - 1891] [1892
- 1899]
[1900 - 1905] [1906
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[1911] [1912]
[1913] [1914]
[1915] [1916]
[1917] [1918]
[1919] [1920]
[1921] [1922]
[1923] [1924]
[1925] [1926]
[1927] [1928]
[1929] [1930]
[1931] [1932] [1933]
[1934]
[1935] [1936]
[1937] [1938]
[1939] [1940]
[1941] [1942]
[1943] [1944]
[1945] [1946]
[1947] [1948]
[1949] [1950]
[1951] [1952]
[1953] [1954]
[1955] [1956]
[1957] [1958]
[1959] [1960]
[1961] [1962]
[1963]
[1964]
[1965] [1966]
[1967] [1968]
[1969] [1970]
[1971] [1972]
[1973] [1974]
[1975] [1976]
[1977] [1978]
[1979] [1980]
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[1983] [1984]
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