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The Second CPR Station

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The second CPR station at the foot of Granville Street didn’t make it until its 15th birthday. It was replaced in 1914.

From Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History

The second CPR station didn’t make it to its 15th birthday. It’ shown here being demolished after the current and third CPR station was completed in July 1914. Vancouver Archives photo.

Even if you don’t love the architecture—and I am a fan of anything that’s gothic and grim and wears a turret—you’ve got to admit that the former Canadian Pacific station would be an amazing addition to our current landscape.

Imagine if we still had this view disembarking from the Seabus. The second CPR station ca.1900 Vancouver Archives photo

Designed by Edward Maxwell in the railway’s early Chateau style, the station dominated the foot of Granville Street with its two massive turrets—one round and one octagonal—and an arched entranceway made from Calgary limestone.

Photo courtesy VisionNet BC – 200 Granville Street and former site of the second CPR station

But all this gorgeousness didn’t save the building. Deemed too small for burgeoning Vancouver, the station was demolished in August 1914. It was replaced by the current Waterfront Station, which against all odds, continues to exist.

Fortunately, the New Westminster station was treated more kindly. It’s still at 800 Columbia, formerly a Keg and now operating as a Kelly O’Bryans Restaurant.

800 Columbia built in 1899. Courtesy New Westminster Library

© Eve Lazarus, 2022

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9 comments on “The Second CPR Station”

In the first photo, the downwards sloping ramped road in the foreground still exists today. It is west of Cordova and Granville Street intersection and goes down to an underground parking lot, to give a relative sense of location of where the second CPR station was once situated.

So hard to fathom how one could take down such a magnificent building. Back then our approach to grand buildings was the same as our approach to old-growth trees – just knock em down.

I always look at it this way – if the 2nd CPR station hadn’t been too small, they never would have built the 3rd CPR station (I refuse to call it “Waterfront”!!!! – it still says over the front “Canadian Pacific Railway”!) and it’s a real stunner of a building.

When I lived in the Fairmont Apartments fifty years ago my next door neighbour, Miss Sutherland, showed me a 1909 post card of the second CPR station. She was a British teenager when she arrived in Vancouver that year, and sent the card to her relatives in England. It was later returned to her. She described the excitement of arriving at the station, and mentioned that in the Ladies Room they had Pears Soap. She was impressed.

I have seen so many photos over the years of the exterior, but never one of the interior of the station. I’ve always wondered what it looked like.

Sigh, The second Hotel Van and this second. No other use for it was considered? Hardly if one know the rudderless civic planning this town has endured

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