Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
V VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA The city of Vancouver is truly of the 20th century. When the small town of Granville was incorporated as the city of Vancouver in 1886, it had more in common with American cities west of the Rocky Mountains than with the rest of Canada. San Francisco had served as Vancouver’s main link to the east before the completion of Canada’s transcontinental railway in 1887. Within five years the community of 1000 had grown to nearly 14,000 and the young city became a supply depot and investment center for the Klondike gold rush of 1897–98. From these boomtown beginnings, metropolitan Vancouver is now home to more than 1.8 million people. During the early 20th century, rapid growth fueled construction of neighborhoods along the street railway and interurban lines. Before 1910 many homes were constructed of a prefabricated, insulated, four-foot modular system, designed and manufactured by the B.C.Mills, Timber, and Trading Company. Known as Vancouver Boxes, these efficient and economical houses were characterized by a single story set on a high foundation, a hip roof with dormer windows, and a broad front veranda. From 1910 until the mid-1920s, the most popular house for middle- and lower-class families was a variant of the California bungalow, typified by front gables, exposed rafter ends, and wall brackets, and often chimneys, porch piers, and foundations of rough brick or stone. These Craftsman homes, a small-scale version of the Queen Anne style, were popular amongst the suburban working classes. At one point South Vancouver was expanding at a rate of 200 families per month, all housed in California bungalows.
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