I’m writing a book about John F.C.B. Vance, the first forensic scientist in Vancouver, and this week I wrote about his first day of work as the new City Analyst. My book is non-fiction, but sometimes you need some creative license. My challenge was to get to get Vance from his house in Yaletown to Market Hall, a lovely long-gone gothic building on Westminster (Main Street) which doubled as City Hall.
The Vancouver Police Museum’s Kristin Hardie solved the mystery of this ca.1940 photo. The women police officers on patrol are Bessie Say and Jeanette Heathorn.
This great Foncie photo of two women police officers ran in Sensational Vancouver, in a chapter called “Lurancy Harris’s Beat.” Lurancy was the first female police officer in Canada when she was hired along with Minnie Millar by the Vancouver Police Department in 1912, and one of my favourite historical characters.
The Canadian National Steamship terminal was a funky Spanish Colonial-style building that sat on the pier at the foot of Main Street from 1931 to 1983.
From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Foot of Main Street
Before CRAB Park was created in 1987, there was a funky Spanish Colonial-style building that sat on the pier at the foot of Main Street.
On July 26, 1924, Janet Smith was found shot in the head by a .45 calibre automatic revolver in the basement of a Shaughnessy house. The murder of the Scottish nanny rocked Vancouver. The murder touched on high-level police corruption, kidnapping, drugs, society orgies and rampant racism. This is a short excerpt from At Home With History: the secrets of Greater Vancouver’s heritage homes.
The Flying Angels Club House was built in 1906 by the BC Mills as their offices for sales of pre-fabricated houses, schools and churches.
Story in Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History
Kathryn Murray’s association with the Mission to Seafarers goes back to 1902—the same year the Flying Angels Club came to Vancouver.
Just before you hit the bike only section of Point Grey Road at Alma you may have noticed that the corner lot is missing a lovely old heritage house. The lot sold for $4 million last year, and of course was advertised with a demolition permit and plan for a “brand new 2,800 sq.ft. house on a fantastic view lot” attached.
If you think that museums are full of old fossils and boring exhibits, it’s time to get yourself down to All Together Now: Vancouver Collectors and their Worlds.
I went on opening night this week when 20 collectors were hanging out with their obsessions and it’s one of the craziest nights I’ve had in a long time.
The Second Narrows Bridge Collapsed on June 17, 1958, tossing 79 workers into Burrard Inlet and killing 18 of them.
Sounded like an explosion:
Some described the noise of the bridge collapsing into the Second Narrows as gunfire or an explosion, others as a rumble or a loud snapping sound. On June 17, 1958 at 3:40 p.m., people from all over Vancouver stopped to listen, as two spans collapsed, tossing 79 workers into Burrard Inlet and killing 18 of them.