Vancouver History Tidbits: Stanley Park

Add a Comment by Rebecca Bollwitt Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 — 11:44am PDT

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After walking around Central Park this morning, I started thinking about Stanley Park back home and that it would be a great time to rustle up a quick history tidbits post.

At 1,000 acres Stanley Park is just slightly bigger than New York’s Central Park (843 acres)

July 27, 1911: The Province reported that one third of Vancouver’s population had passed through the gates of Stanley Park during the week of July 10-16, making it one of the most popular pleasure resorts the Terminal City possesses.â€ [source]

Stanley Park is named after Lord Stanley who also has a prized hockey trophy named after him. Check out this post I wrote a little while ago with links to some great hockey history.

Plans for gun emplacements in Stanley Park, between Second and Third Beach (near the Pauline Johnson Memorial) up on Ferguson Point were made Juanary 19, 1938. [source]

In 1964 Vancouver’s Mayor Bill Rathie and Park Board Chairman George Wainborn drove the last spike in the Stanley Park miniature railway. [source]

The original Lumberman’s Arch

Deadman’s Island is so named because it was once the site of native burial grounds (and was later used by white settlers for the same purpose). [source]

When I was at the City Archives there was a great photo of the perimeter road in Stanley Park, covered (paved) in calcined shells, which originated from a midden near Lumberman’s Arch, where the First Nations village Xway-xway was located. In some places the shells went down 8 feet so they ended up using it for the road all the way from Coal Harbour, around Brockton Point, and over to Prospect Point. — On this note, I would highly recommend checking out the Museum of Anthropology if you’d like to learn more about the area’s history – going back hundreds of years through First Nations culture.