Category: New Westminster history

“Those in the know were in a position to act on their information; others could only guess at what was going on” from G.W.A. Brooks M.A thesis in HIstory, April 1976

I’ve been trying to get my head around the back room deals and characters who were buying huge chunks of land as early as the 1870s in the area that later became Vancouver .

Anticipating that the national railroad, promised to British Columbia as an incentive to join Confederation would terminate here, a syndicate of politicians and businessmen began speculating on land in the undeveloped area that would later become Vancouver, ultimately reaping them millions in real estate transactions.

But they first had to use their financial connections and instigate some political manoeuvering to rig it so that Vancouver and not Port Moody became the ultimate winner of that real estate sweepstake.

Who were these people and how did they know or at least strongly influence the selection of Vancouver as the terminus?

They were government officials, including then Premier William Smithe, Dr Israel Powell, Laughlin Hamilton, and others, and businessmen George Campbell, Richard Alexander, Edward Heatley, John Robson, David and Isaac Oppenheimer and others after which many of the streets in the oldest part of Vancouver are named.

And they quietly split up large swaths of land here as early as the late 1870s, even though approval for construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, the CPR, didn’t even receive royal assent until 1881. And then they offered pieces of their cheaply bought (stolen) land to the CPR in exchange.

These guys were business partners and buddies, mostly operating between Victoria, New Westminster, London England, and San Francisco, with a few ambitious early arrivals based in Granville (later Vancouver), Hastings Townsite, and Yale.

They hung out socially too with dinners and arranged marriages between the various families; and whist and poker games that frequently went on until 3 in the morning.

Officially, Port Moody was designated as the railroad terminus in 1884, but this political and economic syndicate had the connections to lure the railroad further west, to Vancouver, and were motivated to do it because they knew that their properties would skyrocket in value and make them all filthy rich.

So while the “man on the street” was distracted by the excitement generated by the Port Moody terminus announcement, men working at the Hastings Sawmill in Granville (later Vancouver) just kept drinking and gambling, and generally not paying much attention to anything but their bodily needs and trying to survive the boredom of life in the milltown.

In the end, the CPR garnered more than 6000 acres of property here in exchange for making Vancouver the railroad terminus, becoming the largest landowner in areas of the city that later became the West End, Shaughnessy, Coal Harbour, and Fairview.

The novel I’m writing, begins in 1880s Vancouver, and already encompasses land and property issues, including First Nations land grabs by settlers, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of touching on this scandal too, part of the bigger picture of Vancouver real estate speculation and corruption.