The following is a guest post contributed by Amber Strocel of TheV3H.com
I have lived in the Port Moody area for a little over 6 years. My children were born here, and our family is happy to call this place home. As we head into the BC Day long weekend I thought I would do a little digging and learn more about the history of Port Moody, which is intertwined with the history of British Columbia.
The mainland colony of British Columbia was created in 1858 following the discovery of gold on the Thompson River. With prospectors flooding in from the United States, Governor James Douglas wanted to exert British control over the region. A colony was established and Lieutenant-Governor Richard Moody was appointed to oversee the creation of a capital city. New Westminster was chosen because it was considered easier to defend than Fort Langley, where the colony of British Columbia was originally declared. It fell to Moody to build the city of New Westminster with the Royal Engineers under his command.
The backstreets of Port Moody today.
In addition to establishing the capital the engineers, or sappers, built roads connecting the city to other regions. One of those roads was North Road, linking New Westminster to Burrard Inlet. The terminus of the road was named Port Moody, for Lieutenant-Governor Richard Moody. The road was meant to provide a supply route from military ships docked in Burrard Inlet to the capital at New Westminster. When their work was complete the Royal Engineers returned to England in 1863. However most of the sappers elected to stay, and they received land grants of 150 acres as compensation. John Murray and three others chose to receive land in Port Moody, although John Murray was the only one of the four who ever actually lived in the community.
Things changed quite suddenly for Port Moody in 1879 when the town was named as the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Over the next few years land speculation became rampant and a town site was laid out. Murray’s son, John Jr., named the streets. He chose patriotic names such as Elgin Street for the Governor General of Canada and Queens Street for Queen Victoria. He also chose the names of family members. Jane Street was named for his mother, Kyle Street for his brother-in-law, Mary Street for his sister and Hugh Street for his brother. Clarke Street was named for his father’s partner Captain James A. Clarke and Murray Street was named for the whole Murray clan.
Railway line running through Port Moody.
St. John’s Street and St. George Street actually received their names due to clerical errors. The streets were meant to be John Street for John Murray Sr. and George Street for John Jr.’s brother-in-law. However, for some reason instead of writing ‘John St.’ or ‘George St.’ on the survey he wrote ‘St. John’ and ‘St. George’. The result is the saintly names Port Moody residents are familiar with today. Rumour has it that when Vancouver archivist J.S. Matthews learned the street name he said, “Johnny Murray was no saint.”
Sadly for the land speculators their gamble in Port Moody didn’t pay off. Although the first Trans-Canada train pulled into Port Moody in 1886 the rail line was extended to Vancouver in 1887. Land values plummeted back to earth and fortunes were lost. Many investors were quite upset and went so far as to launch lawsuits, which were not successful. And so rather Vancouver became the largest urban centre in the province and Port Moody did not. The streets, however, still bear the names of the people who built the community and had high hopes for the region.
This post was written by Amber Strocel, who contributes to TheV3H.com along with her husband, Jon. Their blog highlights news and events in and around Port Moody and the Tri-Cities. You can also catch up with Amber’s musings on life and parenting at Strocel.com.
The 8th annual BC Cultural Crawl kicks off this weekend from Barkerville to Victoria, Cranbrook to Comox. The goal of the cultural crawl is to highlight community art events around our province which are happening every day throughout the month of August.
Here’s a sample lineup of events happening across the province on BC Day, August 3rd:
We had what many called snowmageddon this winter and now we’re busting the thermostats with record heatwave temperatures across the Province. All this wonderful sunshine might be getting too hot and uncomfortable for most to bear as we hear grumbled complaints about the weather around town. The following history tidbits serve to remind us of the unpleasant and soggy days we’ve experienced throughout the City’s history (which will hopefully help us cool off a little in the meantime).
1853: The first dairy farm in Greater Vancouver was operated in Ladner by Alexander McLean. After being flooded out in 1853 McLean moved his family and their 50 cows to the west bank of the Pitt River in what is now Port Coquitlam.
May, 1894: The largest Fraser River flood occurred, flooding far and wide from Agassiz straight through to Richmond.
In 1948 the Fraser flooded the Valley again, impacting agricultural developments, two transcontinental rail lines and the airport that had been built in Richmond.
March 26, 1956: 1,000 facts about Vancouver were collected by UBC students for the Tourism Association. They noted that Vancouver get an average of 1,663 hours of sunshine annually.
As president of the Vancouver Tourist Association, Leo (Michael Leo) Sweeney (1886-1977) wore a straw boater hat when it rained “to prove it was liquid sunshine.â€
October 28, 1921: A sudden flood wave at Britannia Beach crashed down on the village and swept away 50 of its 100 houses, killing 35 people.
October 18, 1934: Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Lefty Gomez, Charlie Gehringer, Heinie Manush, and Lefty O’Doul, played a game in Vancouver as “Babe Ruth’s All Americans,†against the “American League All-Stars.†It was pouring rain yet 3,000 fans showed up to watch these pros play knee-deep in mud. Said Lefty O’Doul in the dugout, “Say, this is some baseball town, isn’t it? Back in Portland there weren’t five hundred out and on a bright and sunny day.†[source]
October 12, 1962: Hurricane Frieda hits Vancouver. Frieda started out as a typhoon, became a hurricane, and is what some called an “extra” tropical storm.
June 1988: Record rainfall for June in the Fraser Valley this month saw 144 mm (5.7 inches) of rain pour down.
As an update to the first note, Vancouver currently gets between 1900 – 2200 annual hours of sunshine, meanwhile places such as the aptly-named Sunshine Coast see about 2400 hours.
The Amazing Hunt is coming to the Canada Line. A while back in my Amazing Hunt 2009 preview post there was mention of a Skytrain race and it’s now been confirmed that it will take place in October on the shiny new Canada Line. This will be the second transit race and this time participants will only be able to use the Canada Line (unlike the ability to use Skytrain and buses in the past).
The “Back to the Transit” race will take place Sunday October 3rd from 10:00am to around 3:00pm. You can check out the Amazing Hunt blog for more information or see how I enjoyed the race over when I participated in 2007 and 2008. The Amazing Hunt is such a great time and can really help build a team, strengthen a relationship and well… it can also test your patience with each other. Register online (not on Facebook) to book yourself and a team member in for this event.
If you’d like a sneak preview of the Canada Line, I was treated to a full line tour last week that you can read about here.
Post #49 of #49 – Over the next 24 hours I will be raising funds for the Union Gospel Mission during Blogathon 2009 by writing a blog post every 30 minutes. Please consider donating to my cause to keep my going until 6am PT July 26th.
We made it. After 24 hours of blogging Miss604.com readers have donated and pledged over $3,000 to the Union Gospel Mission. The support in all forms has been overwhelming and I cannot say it often enough but I have the best readers in the world.
There has been a group of bloggers here at the on-site event who have worked hard for their causes as well. Each and every one has put in an amazing amount of effort into their individual campaigns.
If you would like to re-live my 24 hours, you can read all of my Blogathon 2009 posts here. Thanks again everyone, and goodnight (good morning) from Gastown.
