Throwback Thursday: When they wondered if this village of 1200 will grow

July 5, 2018 12:02pm

Stan Clarke’s first gas station, harding’s barbershop PGE Houses, fire hall (with smoke stack), and the post office. Cleveland Avenue, Squamish’s main street is named after E.A. Cleveland, the BC land surveyor who drew up the plan of the subdivision of Squamish in 1912. PICTURE: Squamish Public Library

By Gagandeep Ghuman
Published: July 5, 2018

‘Will this village of 1200 grow?’ It was over 50 years ago the Vancouver Sun posed that question about Squamish to the local municipal clerk, Hannah McCormack.

The occasion warranted the question: The year was 1951 and the PGE had been extended from Squamish to the South connection. In a special issue commemorating the launch, the paper wondered what the impact of this extension would have on this village called Squamish. “What does the future hold for this tiny Pacific Eastern Railway Main station?”

*Engine No. 52 arriving at Newport (Squamish). The date on the arrival of this locomotive was November 13, 1913. PICTURE: Squamish Public Library*

McCormack, of course, had no way to predict Squamish would become the town it’s now. But her observations around real estate would resonate with a lot of locals even now.

Real estate values, McCormack tells the Sun, have been going up although she wasn’t sure what impact the railway would have on the town.

“The average lots here sell for $400 to $1,000 in residential areas. On Cleveland Avenue, the main street, a 25-foot piece of frontage costs $2,500. On Hospital Hill, where a smart, four-year-old hospital sits, new homes are sprinkled overlooking Howe Sound.”

And the worth of those new homes? “Some are worth $15,000, and some are worth more.”

Enthused by the railway connection to North Vancouver, McCormack hoped that there will be a boom in tourism. She said if Garibaldi Park were developed with highway construction, there could be a tourism boom.

“We have only two small hotels now, we could use another one. If Garibaldi were to open up, we’d need more.”

McCormack also said there was confusion in town on what the railway extension may mean for Squamish. “It’s hard to say what this extension will mean to us. Some people will tell you the town will grow fast, and you will find just as many to disagree with them. I will just wait and see.”

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Comments

Gerry Kristianson says

July 6, 2018 at 4:20 pm

The reference to the PGE being extended “from Squamish to the South connection” might be misleading. The occasion for the Vancouver Sun question was the completion of track from Quesnel to Prince George (and a connection with the CNR) so that the PGE no longer was the railway “from nowhere to nowhere”.

In Spring 1956 Squamish students were paraded to the crossing near the school to watch a small locomotive arrive in Squamish from the South for the first time. As I recall, it was pulling flat cars loaded with track so that rails could be laid down in front (and if necessary pulled up behind) in order to fulfill WAC Bennett’s promise of a completion date. The actual first passenger run came in late summer in time for a number of us to pay our first visit to the PNE!

In a masterful demonstration of government planning, Bennett then promised a highway to Vancouver so for a couple of years the railway had to be closed frequently so that rock from road construction could be cleared from the tracks. Five of us from the HSHS Class of ’58 unofficially opened the highway on Grad Night because we had been invited to an after grad party at a Vancouver high school the next nigh! A big deal for small town kids!
Gerry Kristianson