Monday, August 22, 2011

Vancouver: Over 100 years of Photographs

Vancouver was founded in 1886 and the first few pictures below, account for the first years in the area of what is now South Granville.  The construction of the first Granville Bridge linked the inlet and allowed industry to prosper around False Creek.
North Arm Road or "A Slit in the Forest", 1888
 North Arm Road later became Granville Street when the first Granville Bridge was built in 1889
Granville Street looking North from 24th Ave, 1911
The second Granville Bridge built in 1911. 
On February 4, 1954, the current Granville Street Bridge, costing $16.5 million, opened. A million cars would cross over the bridge in its first month. The city of Vancouver funded the bridge itself as Mayor Frederick Hume said "no formal assistance given by any other government body."
Once construction on the 3rd Bridge was complete the 2nd bridge was taken apart and the Steel was used to build the footings of the Oak Street Bridge.

 I was searching around and came across someone with a flickr account with nearly 200 old photgraphs of Vancouver and the outlying regions throughout the decades.
 
Hastings & Carrall, 1910
Postcard: Old Georgia Viaduct, c.1915
Hastings & Carrall, 1931
Postcard: Vancouver Skyline, c.1956
Downtown, False Creek and Granville Island, c.1964
Chinatown at Night, 1964
Granville Street, 1965

Here are some panoramas of the city and its development.
Vancouver from Fairview, c.1890
 View looking north from Granville Street and 14th, c.1911
 Looking east, south and west from the Post Office tower, c.1909
Looking north from Nelson Street, 1936
The eastern business section of Vancouver, 191-
360 degree view of Vancouver from the roof of the second Hotel Vancouver, Aug. 1914
Peace Ceremonies in Stanley Park on July 19, 1919
 
Burrard Dry Dock, North Vancouver, 1944
 View of Granville Island (reclamation partially complete) from the top of the Granville Bridge, June 1916
 Southward view of west False Creek showing dredging and Granville Island under construction from the roof of Begg Motors, Aug. 1919
View of east False Creek showing the C.P.R. Drake Street Roundhouse and coal trestle, and the Cambie Street Bridge, Aug. 1916
Vancouver 2005

Lastly, A Year in Five Minutes is a series of short summary article describing everything news worthy event in the cities development, from the 1886 up until 1985.  I have only read a few years but they are interesting articles of the city that I have grown up in and yet know or seen very little  of its history.  
My favorite: The Main Events 1886 : The city is incorporated; the city burns down

4 comments:

  1. Love this series Aaron. Have seen a few over the time, but cool to see together like this.

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  2. yeah thanks a lot. i spent a bit of time getting this together. glad you like it. i might do a follow up later on hastings.

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  3. I love it! Thank you very much.
    Luke
    Vancouver

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  4. Too bad that so many people had to create and live in cities that the devils and Belial wants them to live in to alienate them from nature.

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