Sixty-nine years ago, someone torn straight down Lumbermen’s Arch. They torched it.
Nonetheless it ended up beingn’t vandals that ruined the Stanley Park landmark, it was decompose.
“Like a classic unwell horse that had to be released of their distress, Vancouver’s famed Lumbermen’s Arch was torn down Wednesday, ” wrote Clyde Gilmour when you look at the Dec. 4, 1947, version for the Vancouver Province. “Part associated with rotting structure folded Tuesday evening. (The) overnight, bulldozers torn the remainder of it aside.”
Current arch is an alternative, and is smaller compared to the initial, which dated to 1912.
The first Lumbermen’s Arch had been erected to mark a-west shore visit by Canada’s Governor-General, the Duke of Connaught, on Sept. 18-20, 1912.
“Anytime there is any huge thing taking place around, they always set up arches, ” explains Norman Young, the former head of Vancouver Civic Theatres.
Indeed, there have been several arches erected along city roads for go to by the Duke, their partner, and their particular daughter Patricia.
The Progress Club put-up a reproduction associated with portal to St. James’ Palace in London, detailed with a rock façade that managed to get appear to be a palace. It had been positioned at Granville and Dunsmuir, just across the street from a second castle-style arch erected by the German community at Granville and Georgia.
There ended up being a Japanese arch at Hastings and Main, a Chinese arch at Pender and Carrall, and a Canadian Northern Railway arch at Hastings and Seymour.
The Lumbermen’s Arch stretched across Pender Street at Hamilton. It absolutely was paid for by neighborhood lumber barons and showcased eight logs that formed the articles for a “Gothic portico.”
“These big logs tend to be 18 legs in length and four legs in diameter, left rough utilizing the bark on, ” reported the Vancouver World on Sept. 13, 1912. “Each of them weighs in at over five tons.”
After the Duke’s check out, the lumber barons chose to go their particular arch to Stanley Park. It was re-erected in March, 1913, after being floated across Coal Harbour from downtown.
‘The arch will undoubtedly be a permanent advertisement of our lumber companies, a memento for the Royal visit and, artistically put, an actual ornament and proper addition to our gorgeous playground, ” stated the World.
In 1919, it was formally renamed the Bowie Arch after its designer, designer George Bowie, who had been killed through the First World War. But everybody carried on to call it Lumbermen’s Arch. With time, though, lots of people started initially to call it Lumberman’s Arch.
it is even referred to at Lumberman’s Arch in the Vancouver Archives site, that has some wonderful photographs of original framework. One of several coolest is a 1913 postcard that displays a lot of tents set-up because of the liquid north of arch — it appears to be like individuals were camping here.
There was in addition a road checking out the arch. You can easily nonetheless trace the old roadway by a-row of woods that used to line its edges.
“You could drive through, ” said younger. “There had been a driveway around the monkey household (zoo).”
The newest precise location of the arch was on the webpage of a classic local town that whites labeled as Whoi Whoi (the World labeled as it “Why-Why” in a 1921 tale). The local title for town is Xwayxway, and over time it had been home to Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First countries. (In 1913, the Tsleil-Waututh were called the Burrard band.)
There is a giant midden on the website containing a great deal of archaeological artefacts, such as the remains of shells that were up to eight foot deep. Whenever a roadway was built around the playground in 1888, they used the shells since the roadbed.