Alexander St – Historical Research

I can’t believe I’ve been looking at the front page of the BC historical directories for a few years and never noticed that it has a link to an electronic version Elizabeth Walker’s Street Names of Vancouver.

Elizabeth Walker
Photo by Professor Bob McDonald
both deceased 2019

Elizabeth Walker, who was the head of the Northwest History Room at the Vancouver Public Library was motivated to write this reference book because so many people asked her about how their street was named or who it was named after.

So after she retired she took on this project, spending hours at the Vancouver city archives and the Special Collections Divison of the main Vancouver Library.

Street Names of Vancouver is an immensely valuable resource that I consult at least once a week.

As well as notes on street names, arranged in alphabetical order, the book includes:

information on the street numbering system in Vancouver
notes on numbered streets and name changes
map of street names 1870-1899
map of street names 1900-1929 #
map of street names 1930-1999
bibliography including maps consulted
additions, omissions, and revisions since publication in 1999

# The separate municipalities of South Vancouver, Point Grey, and Vancouver amalgamated in 1929 precipitating a number of street name amalgamations and changes.

The online version is simply a pdf so to search, do “control F”.

Elizabeth Walker died earlier this year but her work lives on.

space contraption — Artist: Chanut is Industries License: CC Attribution 3.0 Unported

In Vancouver in 1903, a company called The Imperial Automatic Voting Machine Company was looking for investors to raise 250 thousand dollars, issuing shares for a dollar each.

The mood in Vancouver was ecstatic that year following the depression of the 1890s, and along with all that money came the a period of scams and reckless speculation.

I wonder what that voting machine was like and how it worked – if it ever even came into being.

Less dramatic, perhaps, but interesting in a different way, the city directory where I found the Imperial voting machine company also showed me that on Hastings Street – what is now downtown Vancouver – a couple of blacksmiths, a couple of Chinese laundries, and a few warehouses. Even a foundry with a few boarding houses interspersed here and there.

A little further away there was a harness-maker, a prospector, a steam-boatman, a cannery manger, and a shingle sawyer.

Not the kind of people who live in the city today!

All this I found in the collection of BC Directories 1860-1955 which are available online through the Vancouver Public Library.

And here is a link to a collection of directories covering Alberta, Manitoba, and Northwest Territories Directories going back to 1878.

And another link to locating historical directories across other Canadian jurisdictions. The years vary. Links to Canadian historical directories

Directories exist in almost every other jurisdiction in the English-speaking world and possibly elsewhere in some format, but that is beyond my ken.

If the above links aren’t helpful for your research, do a google search using the term, “historical directory” and the name of jurisdiction.

Category: Alexander St

Street Names of Vancouver – available online

The Imperial Automatic Voting Machine Company