Mount Pleasant Heritage

Mount Pleasant Walking Tours 2023

March 8, 2023

I’m happy to announce that I will be leading Mount Pleasant Stories history walks this spring (April & May). Tour groups will be kept small (maximum 8 participants) allowing for a more personal and flexible experience. These tours are for anyone who would like to learn about Mount Pleasant’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage in an active way.

Tours will be held on a Saturday or Sunday starting at 10 AM.Each tour will be around 2 to 2.5 hours. Participants must be comfortable walking 3 kms over a 2.5 hour period of time. The tour routes include a few alleys without sidewalks and some uneven surfaces. Tours take place rain or shine. Wear comfortable clothing & shoes. If rain is forecasted bring rain gear.

Tour 1: In the path of Brewery Creek

Doering & Marstrand Brewery Employees ca. 1892. Photo: CoV Archives, Dist P18; 1901 Fire Insurance Plan; Wallace -Stark House E 10th, ca. 1911. Photo: Salt Spring Archives. All colour photos: C.Hagemoen

Mount Pleasant is Vancouver’s first suburb and the only neighbourhood to develop along a creek. Brewery Creek once flowed down to False Creek, carving a ravine for itself through Mount Pleasant, crossing Main Street twice – at 14th Avenue and again at about 10th Avenue. Early settlers established industries – tanneries, slaughterhouses, and several breweries – along its ravine. That early growth was supported by the introduction of electric streetcar service in 1891. Many of the buildings from this streetcar era still exist. These older, human-scale buildings continue to provide housing, creative and commercial spaces for a wide variety of individuals, community groups and local businesses.

Starting at historic Heritage Hall, we’ll loosely follow the historic path of old Brewery Creek through Mount Pleasant’s heritage heart as it winds its way downstream towards False Creek. Along the way, we’ll discover the people and businesses that settled along its banks, including the historic breweries that gave Brewery Creek its name. In addition, we’ll explore quirky streets and alleys, discover historical and other interesting neighbourhood features, learn about the area’s built and natural history, and meet some of the interesting people who once made their homes and livelihoods in this neighbourhood. Conveniently, we’ll end the tour at one of Mount Pleasant’s breweries giving participants an opportunity to savour some of the neighbourhood’s liquid history, if they so choose.

Duration: 2 – 2.5 hours. Please note this tour is point-to-point and will not end up at the start location.
Meeting location – Heritage Hall at 10 AM. (please arrive a few minutes early for check in).
End location – TBA
Cost: $20 per person – tour capacity 8 people

Tour 1 dates: Saturday, April 8 (Full !); Sunday, April 23; Saturday, May 13; Sunday, May 28 (almost full, 1 spot left!).

To reserve a space (or spaces) on this tour fill out the contact form below.

Federal Store, east 10th at Quebec. Photo: C. Hagemoen

Tour 2: Lower Mount Pleasant

W6th at Ontario, Laura’s Coffee Shop, and Mount Pleasant Hall. Photo: C. Hagemoen; 1913- NE Mount Pleasant. Photo: CoV Archives, PAN N161B; Children on the SE corner W4th at Yukon, 1938. Photo: Karel Haspel, CoV Archives, CVA 300-138; Italian family & friends on sidewalk, 1943, C.Hagemoen family archives.

Lower Mount Pleasant, the light-industrial, commercial, & residential area (north of Broadway, bounded by Cambie Street and Clark Drive), is often omitted when Mount Pleasant heritage is discussed. Though it is hard to tell today, this area was once primarily residential and home for a multi-cultural community of families and individuals. Many of them were new immigrants who came to work in the industries that operated along the south shore of False Creek. Others set up their own businesses, opened shops or restaurants, or provided services to the Mount Pleasant community. Small pockets of the original dwellings, buildings, and businesses still exist and serve as a tangible reminder of the varied history of this part of the community.

On this walk we’ll explore the surprisingly rich history of this area and learn the stories of some of the families, workers, legacy businesses, and social groups that once called this unique part of Mount Pleasant home.

Duration: 2 – 2.5 hours. Please note this tour is point-to-point and will not end up at the start location.
Meeting location – SW corner of Jonathan Rogers Park (W8th at Columbia) at 10 AM. (please arrive a few minutes early for check in).
End location – TBA
Cost: $20 per person – tour capacity 8 people

Tour 2 dates: Saturday, April 15 ( Full); Sunday, April 30; Saturday, ~~May 20~~ (Full!).

To reserve a space (or spaces) on this tour fill out the contact form below.

30 W 6th, 1974. Photo: CoV Archives, CVA 1095-03484

About the tour guide: Christine Hagemoen, a 4th generation Vancouverite, is a Mount Pleasant based historical researcher, writer, and photographer. She is the You Should Know columnist at Scout Magazine and has written for Photo Life and Geist magazine. Christine has led walking tours for the Vancouver Heritage Foundation and Heritage Vancouver. She recently published the first book in a series of walking tour guides titled Mount Pleasant Stories: Historical Walking Tours.

I respectfully acknowledge that these Mount Pleasant Stories walking tours take place on the traditional and unceded lands and waters of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

Local History Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 24 – Doll Hospital

December 24, 2022

It’s back! I has been 3 years since I published my last Local History Advent Calendar! So much has happened since that last time—including the publication of my first book, Mount Pleasant Stories—that I figured it was about time to dust off the Local History Advent Calendar once again. Similar to a regular advent calendar but instead of chocolate treats, each day you “open” a new historical treat. Think of them as holiday cocktail party fodder– 24 facts or stories about local history that can be used as conversation starters at your next social event.

Vancouver was home to Western Canada’s first Doll Hospital—during the time when we repaired broken items instead of just throwing them out and buying new.

George Coe was a partner in the pioneering chinaware and toy shop business, Millar & Coe founded in 1912. After selling out to his partner, Miller in 1925, Coe opened his “Dolls’ Hospital” at 195 East Hastings.

“Dr. Coe” with one of his patients. Province Newspaper, December 14, 1942

Coe’s foray into chief surgeon at his own Dolls’ Hospital started with a rather unconventional Christmas window idea for Millar & Coe described in this December 14, 1942 Province newspaper clipping:

Christmas time was an extremely brisk time. Dolls of in various states of “brokeness” would be “admitted” to Coe’s doll hospital.

The Province, Nov 12 1955 photo by Villy Svarre.

After Coe died in 1948, there was a void that needed to be filled. Enter, the Sirmuls and their Doll Hospital at 2241 Main Street. Mrs. Vera Sirmul, along with her husband, not only “cured” dolls but created new ones too. The Sirmuls once owned a doll factory in their native Latvia. When the Soviets took control of Latvia after WW2, their factory became “nationalized”. The Sirmuls escaped and came to Canada.

Like Coe, the Sirmul’s busiest time was during the Christmas season. The rush carried on into the spring “when the larger department stores [sent] in dozens of patients who became “sick” before their guarantee expired.”

The Doll Hospital made quite an impression on the children of Mount Pleasant in the 1950s. Several former residents recall the rather creepy sight of dismembered doll parts through the front window.

You can read more Mount Pleasant stories in my walking tour book, Mount Pleasant Stories. Copies are available for purchase in Mount Pleasant at Pulpfiction Books – 2422 Main Street and in Chinatown at Massy Books – 229 E Georgia St. It makes a great gift or stocking stuffer for your favourite local history buff!

Local History Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 23 – William H. H. Johnson

December 23, 2022

William H. H. Johnson (1839-1905?) was an early Black settler in Mount Pleasant; who is notable for writing the first slave narrative published by a British Columbian. Johnson wrote –‘The Horrors of Slavery‘ (1901) and ‘The Life of Wm. H.H. Johnson from 1839-1900, and the New Race‘ (1904) – while living in Mount Pleasant.

Born in Indiana, Johnson was the son of a fugitive slave mother and a free father. During his youth, his family were “station masters”of the Underground Railroad in Indiana, helping Blacks escape to freedom in Canada. Fearing for their own safety, Johnson’s family ultimately fled to Ontario. Johnson writes, “I was born a slave in a free state, but was never one in practice; while we were very young my father brought his wife and children to Canada to prevent that.”

Johnson arrived in Vancouver with his wife Fannie in September 1890:

“Shortly after my arrival in this city I secured a location, on which to build a house, on 14th Avenue, Mount Pleasant which was then comparatively a wilderness, though in every other way a charming location. My wife was well pleased with the change, especially as regards the climate, the winters here being much milder than in Ontario. We found the people in Vancouver very friendly, and in fact I cannot say that I have ever lived among a more sociable set than in this city… After clearing a couple of lots I erected a shop and started the manufacture of varnish.” – The Life of Wm. H.H. Johnson from 1839-1900, and the New Race (1904)

1896 Vancouver City Directory listing for William H H Johnson, varnish maker

Portion of Goads 1897 (revised to 1901) Fire Insurance Plan showing Johnson’s Varnish Works.

After Johnson’s wife Fannie died in 1897, he invited Henry Harvey, an expressman for the CPR, and his wife Pheby to live with him in his house on East 14th. Also living with Johnson, for a time, are Caribbean-born varnish maker Charles R. Greenway and his wife Florence.

Mysteriously, William H.H. Johnson disappears from all records by 1905; it is believed that he died that year.

You can read this and other Mount Pleasant stories in my walking tour book, Mount Pleasant Stories. Copies are available for purchase in Mount Pleasant at Pulpfiction Books – 2422 Main Street and in Chinatown at Massy Books – 229 E Georgia St. It makes a great gift or stocking stuffer for your favourite local history buff!

Local History Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 22 – Native Education College

December 22, 2022

The Native Education College’s impressive structure, based on traditional Coast Salish architecture, serves as a tangible reminder that Indigenous people are the first people of these lands.

NEC building in background. Granite History marker SE corner 5th and Scotia. Photo: C.Hagemoen

Established in 1967, the Native Education Centre (NEC), now the Native Education College, began as a project to meet the educational needs of Vancouver’s growing urban Indigenous population and to provide “Indigenous learners with the academic and life skills to secure employment and improve their quality of life”. The College was established under the leadership and direction of Ray Collins from the Department of Indian Affairs and local Indigenous leaders like Gertrude Guerin. In 1979, the NEC became a private post-secondary college operated and controlled by BC First Nations.

The college’s purpose-built campus opened in 1985 at East 5th and Scotia. Prior to the construction of the campus 285 East 5th, the NEC was operating out of a small space at 224 West Broadway. The NEC’s post-and-beam longhouse was designed by Vancouver architect Larry McFarland, assisted by building designer Malcom McSporran. The building’s largest beams are made from first growth Douglas Fir.

Raising the pole, 1985, courtesy Native Education College.

The 42-foot totem pole on the east side of the building was carved by renowned Nisga’a master carver Norman Tait (1941-2016). Named Wil Sayt Bakwhlgat, which means “the place where the people gather”, Tait designed the pole to illustrate a Nisga’a myth about the origin of forest, water, and sky animals. The totem pole’s traditional doorway carved into the base serves as the longhouse’s ceremonial entrance.

The NEC celebrated its 55th anniversary this year.

Local History Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 21 – Brewery Creek Building

December 21, 2022

Brewery Creek Cairn with Brewery Creek Building in background. Photo: C. Hagemoen

A rare existing example of an industrial building from Mount Pleasant’s past, this circa 1904 stone and brick structure was originally built as part of an expansion of Vancouver Breweries Ltd. operations.

A building permit was issued to the brewery in October 1903 for an $8,000 brick and stone building to be erected on the corner of Scotia Street & East 6th Avenue. Daily Province newspaper articles from 1903 reveal that the new two-storey building featured a bottle-washing room equipped with automatic electric machinery and was constructed for use as a storage cellar for ageing ale.

Detail of 1956 Fire Insurance Plan Vol. 3, sheet 341

After the building ceased its brewery function it became the home to a variety of businesses over the next several decades including: confectioner Benjamin F. Fell’s Candy Factory (you can still see the hand painted Fell’s Candy Factory sign on the East 6th Avenue facade), Purity Dairy, Vancouver Creamery, Canada Grease Works, and a stucco manufacturing plant to make bottle-dash stucco. The building was converted into artist live-work spaces in 1993.

The building in 1978 before renovations. Photo: CoV Archives, CVA 791-0113.

In 1998, a TV “docu-soap” called Brewery Creek , which followed the lives of residents of the Brewery Creek condos for two months, including one time resident, singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan aired on CBC.

Local History Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 20 – Mason Block

December 20, 2022

The Mason Block under construction in 1907. Photo: COV Archives, Dist P142

The Mason Block (2603 Main Street), named for owner W.H. Mason, was built from 1906 to 1907 and is an early example of mixed-use architecture. A building permit for the property was issued in 1906 for “cement stores and dwellings” at a cost of $10,000. Like the Hanna Block (Day 1, LHAC) it is constructed of reinforced concrete and cast concrete blocks, one of the first in the city. The Mason Block was built over the Brewery Creek ravine just like the Wenonah Building at 11th and Main was. In addition to the ground floor commercial space with apartments above, the building includes three 2-storey townhouses along 10th Avenue, all with private front and rear entrances – probably the city’s first set of concrete condominiums.

Mason Block in 1992. Mount Pleasant Credit Union is located on corner. Photo: CoV Archives CVA 332-27

During the construction of the Mason Block there was a terrible accident that resulted in the death of one of the construction workers. In November 1906, carpenter Edward W. Walsh was nailing a board beneath some scaffolding holding two men when it suddenly gave way, crushing Walsh beneath it. When he was extracted from the debris it was discovered he had broken his back, Walsh died later that day in hospital. Ed and Elizabeth Walsh, along with their children, had only recently moved to Mount Pleasant, residing at 2724 Westminster Avenue (Main Street). One of the men on the scaffolding was building owner W H. Mason. He suffered only minor injuries.

Mason Block housing along E 10th. Photo: C. Hagemoen

You can find more Mount Pleasant stories in my walking tour book, Mount Pleasant Stories. Copies are available for purchase in Mount Pleasant at Pulpfiction Books – 2422 Main Street and in Chinatown at Massy Books – 229 E Georgia St. It makes a great gift or stocking stuffer for your favourite local history buff!

Local History Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 14 – Peter Pantages

December 14, 2022

Did you know that Peter Pantages of Polar Bear Swim fame, lived with his family and later wife Helen in an 1910-built house at 343 East 13th Avenue in Mount Pleasant from 1923 to the 1970s? That house still stands today.

Peter Pantages, Dec 15, 1927. Photo: COV Archives, CVA 99-1786

Peter (Pete) Basil Pantages was born in Andros, Greece in 1901 and came to Canada as a young man.

A member of the Royal Life Saving Society, Peter founded the Polar Bear Club in 1921. However, the first polar bear swim was a year earlier, after he talked some buddies into plunging into the frigid Vancouver waters on January 1, 1920– essentially inaugurating the Polar Bear Swim. The Vancouver Polar Bear Swim Club is one of the largest and oldest Polar Bear Clubs in the world and the Vancouver event is thought to be the first of its kind in Canada.

Peter’s uncle Pericles Pantages (who preferred to call himself Alexander, after Alexander the Great) ran Vancouver’s Pantages theatre, which was located at 152 East Hastings Street. It was in that vaudeville theatre that Peter first started working in the city.

Peter later opened his own business, the Peter Pan Cafe on Granville Street. The cafe was a popular spot for celebrations and with Vancouver’s Greek community.

The former Pantages house at 343 E13th in 1978 (needs a paint job). Photo: COV Archives, CVA 786-58.16

In addition to keeping busy with the cafe and the Polar Bear Swim Club, Pantages ran the Peter Pan Hall, a meeting place and venue that was located at 1636 West Broadway (at Fir); close the to Greek community located in Kitsilano.

Peter Pantages died in 1971, but his Polar Bear Swim legacy lives on.

You can find this and other Mount Pleasant stories in my walking tour book, Mount Pleasant Stories. Copies are available for purchase in Mount Pleasant at Pulpfiction Books – 2422 Main Street and in Chinatown at Massy Books – 229 E Georgia St. It makes a great gift or stocking stuffer for your favourite local history buff!

Local History Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 6 – Jantzen Factory

December 6, 2022

Jantzen Canada Inc. – 1927-1996 – 196 Kingsway. Photo: NMAH Archives Center Jantzen Knitting Mills Collection.

“Jantzen: the suit that changed bathing into swimming ”

For most of the 20th century, Jantzen was the name in swimwear. Jantzen operated their Vancouver factory from the same Kingsway location from 1927 until 1996. Jantzen Canada was the largest clothing manufacturer in the city.

Jantzen swimsuits, knit sportswear, and sweaters were first made in B.C. in 1924, when local company Universal Knitting Mills obtained the Canadian license to manufacture the Jantzen line from the parent Jantzen Knitting Mills of Portland, Oregon.

Designed by Robert Wilson, the factory at 196 Kingsway opened in 1927 and was added onto several times during its near-70 year existence. The iconic Jantzen red diving-girl logo—a capped swimmer diving into the water— stood proudly above the Kingsway entrance.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s savvy shoppers would hit up Jantzen’s Factory Outlet for bargains.

At the time of its closure in 1996, the Vancouver plant was Janzten’s most profitable division. Nevertheless the company decided to move production to a lower-wage location in Central America—a direct outcome of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). 285 garment workers lost their jobs.

2009 Google Street view of the Jantzen building at E.10th and Kingsway.

Local History Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 5 – Freedman House

December 5, 2022

Freedman home and family, 123 East 5th Ave., 1919, source unknown.

Chaim (Himan) Leib Freedman (1886-1952) arrived in Vancouver from Antopal, Poland (now Belarus) in 1910. Four years later, wife Sarah (Goldberg) and 4-year-old son Myer joined Freedman. Daughters Rosie, Celia and Rachel were born in Canada.

Chaim Freedman was an entrepreneur earning a living as a junk dealer. From 1915 to 1952, he was the proprietor of a junk & second hand furniture business called Chicago Junk Co. (later Chicago Furniture) at 625 Main Street.

First settling in Strathcona, the original centre of the city’s Jewish community, Chaim L. Freedman and family moved to Mount Pleasant around 1919 (until 1946). It was common for many Jewish families as they became “better off” to move south of False
Creek, first to Mount Pleasant, but still within walking distance of the synagogue in observance Orthodox Jewish laws.

The Freedmans were very active in Vancouver’s early Jewish community. Shortly after his arrival in the city Chaim L. Freedman founded the Vancouver Chevra Kadisha (the Hebrew Burial Society), which was responsible for the care and management of all Jewish burials. He served as its president for twenty-six years. The Freedmans were also founding members of Schara Tzedeck Synagogue.

Son, Myer Freedman (1910-2003) is best known for establishing the Vancouver landmark business Freedman Shoes, in 1931. He owned and operated Freedman Shoes until his retirement in 1997 at the age of 87.

You can find more about members of Mount Pleasant’s Jewish community and other Mount Pleasant histories in my illustrated walking tour book, Mount Pleasant Stories. Copies are available for purchase in Mount Pleasant at Pulpfiction Books – 2422 Main Street and in Chinatown at Massy Books – 229 E Georgia St. It makes a great gift or stocking stuffer for your favourite local history buff!

Local History Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 4 – Cinderella Ballroom

December 4, 2022

185 East 11th after RollerGirl Rollerskates Inc painted the facade in 2013 in order to attract walk-by traffic on Main Street. Image: Google Street View.

This ca. 1927 building, at 185 E 11th, was designed by Bowman & Cullerne and built by A. P. Anderson for Fairmont Athletics Ltd., an early Mount Pleasant organization. It was constructed with a dance hall and store on the main floor, and a smaller hall or gymnasium in the concrete basement. By the late 1920s, the dance hall was known as the Cinderella Ballroom.

Curiously, in the 1940s and 1950s the building served an “evangelical” purpose and was once home for Evangelistic Tabernacle and the cult, Canadian Temple of More Abundant Life. From the 1950s through the 1960’s the hall was known as the Pagoda Room, hosting groups like the Happier Old Age club, The Sweet Adelines (a female barbershop quartet group), and the annual “Miss Mount Pleasant” contest.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, known once again as the Cinderella Ballroom, the Fringe Festival operated their main hangout and pub, the Fringe Club, from this space. It was also the first Mount Pleasant home for the jazz club, The Glass Slipper and a local performance and music venue for artists like Video Barbeque, Hard Rock Miners, The Evaporators, and Bob’s Your Uncle.

The building is currently owned by the Mount Pleasant War Memorial Community Cooperative Association and has been leased to independent tenants such as the current tenant, RollerGirl roller skate shop since 2003.

You can find more Mount Pleasant history in my walking tour book, Mount Pleasant Stories. Copies are available for purchase in Mount Pleasant at Pulpfiction Books – 2422 Main Street and in Chinatown at Massy Books – 229 E Georgia St. It makes a great gift or stocking stuffer for your favourite local history buff!

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Tag: Mount Pleasant Heritage