Frank Gowen was born in England in 1877. He moved to Vancouver in 1913 and worked as a photographer until his death in 1946.
Chris Stiles kindly sent me this fabulous panoramic photo that she and husband Alan found when they were going through some personal effects of Alan’s father recently.
“My husband’s dad, Roy Stiles was assistant fire chief for the Vancouver Fire Department for many years. He passed in March of 2019, at almost 94 years of age,” she wrote. “I know you love the old houses of Vancouver and there are a number of them visible in this photograph.”
Heritage buildings:
I do love old buildings, and Chris has identified quite a few of them:
- Right foreground building is the Waghorn, Gwynn & Co. Stock Brokers, Real Estate, and Loans. 517 Granville Street
- The Alcazar Hotel, on Dunsmuir & northeast corner Homer. The back of sign is visible on second building to the left and back of second row of houses.
- Baker & Co. Signs, 346 Dunsmuir (on the left and behind three houses about in the centre of photograph)
- To the centre right, behind houses is the North West Biscuit Co. Ltd. at 579 Richards.
- On the far left edge, midway up the photo is the Van-loo Cigar Factory (formerly The Stettler Cigar Factory) 140 Water Street
And look at how the second Hotel Vancouver just dominates the city’s skyline.
Early Vancouver:
Chris thinks that Roy’s parents Walter and Daisy Stiles bought the panoramic photo from Frank Gowen shortly after he took it in 1913. It would make it one of Gowen’s earliest photos taken soon after he moved to Vancouver.
Walter Stiles worked for BC Electric from 1910 to 1954.
I went to Frank Gowen’s Vancouver 1914 – 1931 by Fred Thirkell and Bob Scullion to find out more about him. Gowen arrived in Vancouver from Brandon, Manitoba in 1913 and they settled first in Burnaby. While he was establishing himself as a photographer specializing in postcards, he moonlighted as a jitney driver (this was like an early Uber service where people used their private cars to give rides—only back then a trip cost five to 10 cents).
Stanley Park Photographer:
In 1916, he became the official Stanley Park photographer and took many of those posed photos that you see outside Hollow Tree and Prospect Point. His postcards sold in the thousands.
There is a great collection of his photos at UBC and the Uno Langmann Collection
Gowen’s range was extensive. He took everything from hotels and ships to piers and beaches, train stations and parks and shot all over British Columbia.
Chris Stiles also has a great family history. Her father, Fritz Autzen was a baker from Germany who ran the Hippocampus on Denman Street in the 1960s. Fritz was also an avid photographer and his story and photos appear in my new book Vancouver Exposed coming this fall.
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12 comments on “Frank Gowen’s Vancouver”
Another outstanding bit of research. Well done. Keep it coming!
Thanks so much Mark, so glad you enjoyed it! Though Chris Stiles gets credit for the find and the research on this one.
Great panorama! Gowen-Sutton was a tour de force, no question! They were probably responsible for the bulk of Vancouver’s early PR, thanks to all the postcards they published! Dan Propp told some anecdotes about Gowen-Sutton, as he knew Chris Wright of Coast Publishing, which took over from Gowen-Sutton. Sadly, Chris (Charles Christopher Wright) was one of 6 people murdered by a mental patient in the summer of 1972. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/57824564/charles-christopher-wright-of-coast/ There’s a biography of Chris Wright in this issue of the Vancouver Postcard Club newsletter: http://vancouverpostcardclub.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Postview-Feb-2012.pdf In that article, it laments of the demise of original glass plate negatives, sadly shattering as they were stacked into the dumpster!
Excellent Jason, you’ve managed to tie in a murder in my post about history and heritage – now all three pillars of my blog are covered!
Love the photos and the history behind them. What a modern city it was one hundred years ago! Bikinis on English Bay were against the law, and not invented yet.
Hi Eve: Todays photos prompted me to suggest that SOMEONE starts collecting stories about the Alcazar Hotel. This needs to start now, and others may have already begun, and if so I’d just add myself to the list of those collecting stories. I am now 74, but when I was around 15, and attending the Vancouver School of Art, the group I hung out with spent their time in the Alcazar pub, and so did I. My dad knew, but not my mum. Over the years Ive seen many references to events and people at the Alcazar. Ken Belford died early this year, but Ken and I, when he was appointed to the province wide Treaty Negotiation Committee by Harcourt in 1992,quickly found common ground in our early life around that pub, and later he told some of those in emails over the years. John Armstrong is much younger than Ken or I, so his Alcazar period is more recent, but hes only 64 now…different period, but his stories bridge the gap period between the Alcazar and the Plaza. If you can think of someone who might be interested in collecting those stories let me know and I would do whatever needed. I just watch how people like me are disappearing ..If you have any idea who might be interested, or is already doing related work I would appreciate any connections you can make. Just as long as it gets started. I have time and some technical expertise, since although Im still working, much of what I do fits with this kind of a project………( years of whats more like “oral history” )
Feel free to send my information on, but not my cell number. If this suggestion is NOT something of interest, just tell me, and I will just collect what I hear, and see if someone else might be interested. As usual todays post got me thinking, so keep it up…
Sounds like a very worthwhile project and I hope someone takes it up. I have a piece about the murals in the Alcazar Hotel in my new book Vancouver Exposed.
What a find! Must have been taken from the top of the Sun Building! Seeing the spectacular second Hotel Van still makes me angry. Our Penn Station.
Missing fountain? The current one hails from the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1926 does it not?
Apparently several of the dates in the photos are questionable, so thanks for pointing that out. And, I agree about the second Hotel Vancouver, it’s the one I’d want to see if I could time travel
Well done! Vancouver is one of the best places to live in the world. Food is delicious and people are cheerful and honest!
[…] couple of weeks ago, Chris Stiles sent me a photo of Vancouver that her husband’s grandparents had purchased from Frank Gowen in 1913. I wanted to see other […]