Every Place Has a Story

James Cunningham and the Stanley Park Seawall

If you’re planning to enter the James Cunningham Seawall Race this month, spare a thought for its namesake, Jimmy Cunningham. The little Scotsman spent 32 years of his life heaving granite blocks weighing hundreds of pounds and built over half of the 9.5 kilometre wall.

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Jimmy Cunningham, 1962 Courtesy the Province

Jimmy Cunningham and the Stanley Park Seawall is an excerpt from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the city’s hidden history

The James Cunningham Seawall Race started in 1971–the year the last stone was laid on the seawall It takes place every October and attracts more than 1,200 people.

Jimmy Cunningham spent 32 years of his life heaving granite blocks weighing hundreds of pounds and built over half of the 9.5 kilometre wall. The little Scotsman (he stood five foot four – 1.6 metres) tall immigrated to Vancouver in 1910 and became master stonemason for the Parks Board in 1931. From 1921 until he retired in 1955, Cunningham, his wife Elizabeth and their three daughters lived at 4446 Quebec Street, in Vancouver, a tree-lined street near Nat Bailey Stadium. Surprisingly (or maybe not considering his occupation) instead of a stone fence, there’s a well-kept hedge.

Cunningham’s granddaughter Julia says her grandfather would talk to her in Gaelic. She remembers a big potbellied stove in the kitchen and having to boil water for the upstairs bath. During her nursing training, she would meet Jimmy at the seawall and remembers his gnarled, swollen hands. “His right hand was really quite swollen and almost deformed because of all the cutting,” she says. “He never stopped working on the wall. They lowered him down on the rope at low tide. He chose the rock to be cut and then cut the rock down on the beach. He did all the work himself. And he was still doing that into his 80’s.”

Jimmy, his wife Elizabeth lived on Quebec Street from 1921 to 1955
4446 Quebec Street, Vancouver

Stuart Lefeaux, a civil engineer who retired n 1978, masterminded much of the layout of the wall. He says most of the granite blocks came from the beach, the city streets, and a stone quarry on Nelson Island, but a few of them are the abandoned bases of headstones from Mountain View Cemetery.

“Wherever we could get stone, especially granite, we would send out our trucks and machinery and pick them up,” he says.

Taken in Stanley Park just by Siwash Rock. Eve Lazarus, July 2021

Long after Cunningham hung up his trowel, he’d head down to supervise the crew building the seawall. He died in 1963 at 85 and never saw it completed. Story has it that Jimmy and Elizabeth have their ashes buried near the rock at Siwash Rock.

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

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11 comments on “James Cunningham and the Stanley Park Seawall”

When Mountain View decided to place the vertical headstones flat to make it easier to mow the lawns, the old granite plinths were recycled to be part of the Stanley Park sea wall.

Time flies and I was reading recently that Mountain View are going to move the headstones back to their vertical positions atop artificial granite plinths… from Japan.

There used to be a massive boulder on Kits beach just east of the foot of Trafalgar Street. I’m pretty sure it’s gone now and maybe it’s now part of the sea wall.

Don’t know when it disappeared but since it was Beach Party Central in the 40s and 50s, maybe it was removed at the insistence of the exclusive Point Grey Road residents… Just guessing.

I esply enjoyed the `human interest angle“ of this and since I was born and raised in Vancouver, my family spent many a lovely Sunday afternoon strolling along the Seawall. It is wonderful to add the history to the enjoyment.

What an interesting story! I was curious if the house was still standing and what it looked like now. A quick Google search showed me this photo. In light of Vancouver’s current housing situation, I truly hope that it will be standing for a very long time, it’s a great piece of Vancouver’s history, which is disappearing faster than we would like.
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/4446+Quebec+Street,+Vancouver/@49.2453119,-123.10255,3a,75y,91.93h,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m4!1sdySMNcdpkJXwdlilNpXEag!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x43205fe35a46e578!6m1!1e1

“Jimmy and Elizabeth have their ashes buried behind the rock at Siwash Rock. There’s a plaque with his name there.”

I heard this years ago as well, specifically that the ashes were spread directly behind the plaque.

I asked park board staff as recently as this week to confirm but no one will. I’d ask you where you got that info from, but I assume that like me, you heard it from a “little birdie” … Cheers.

I think their granddaughter told me that when I was writing At Home with History. But that was over 12 years ago, and couldn’t verify without spending a few hours in my scary basement.

One thing that gets to me that nobody seems to notice and I can’t find any recognition or information anywhere is who do you suppose continued to build the wall after Cunningham’s demise? My grandfather Alexander Yule took the contract via bidding every year after until it’s completion and built just as much as James but zero mention of a great man and it hurts our family to think of or mention it, the lack of recognition to my amazing grandpa.

Am so proud to say jimmy was my own fathers grandfather amazing story x

My Dad was the stone mason that installed the Cunningham memorial plaque, there is a picture ine herald or sun with him installing the plaque would love to find that picture again

FYI the headstones were also used in the wall by the old Quarryhouse restaurant in queen Elizabeth park
Remember my dad showing them to me
Prior to installation.

Hi Rene: That’s so interesting about the headstones at Queen Elizabeth Park, I hadn’t heard that before. What is your dad’s name? I’ll do a search and see if I can find the photo. Eve

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