Gastown Before the Fire
1885

Watercolor 22" x 30"


Furs brought the first outsiders to the coast, but it was to be timber that brought settlers to Burrard Inlet. In 1865 Captain Edward Stamp was granted rights to cut timber and he built the first sawmill on the south side of the inlet. His steam powered equipment came from England and it wasn’t until 1867 that he was able to begin milling lumber. In the meantime, a small community of laborers grew up around the mill, and that year, just to the west, a small but significant event took place. On the last day of September, 1867, John Deighton stepped from his canoe onto the beach at the future site of the village of Granville. With him was “a squaw, her mother, a dog, two chickens, two chairs,” and most important, a barrel of whiskey. He immediately began dispensing free booze, and within twenty-four hours willing hands had erected ‘Deighton House’, a twelve by twenty-four shack, and John ‘Gassy Jack’ Deighton’s saloon was in business. With a large community of mill hands less than a mile away, his business boomed, and when lots were offered for sale he bought the waterfront lot at the corner of Abbott and Carral and built the Sunnyside Hotel. Gassy Jack did not enjoy a monopoly for long. The same year “ Portuguese Joe” Silvey built a rival saloon that included a grocery store, and soon there was a block long street of hotels, dry goods stores, a butcher and eventually a church and a jail. Gastown was born.