These secrets about the 2010 Olympics venue will knock you off your seat! Vancouver BC trivia includes unsolved murders in Stanley Park & the Vancouver Police Pipe Band.
Maybe you live in Vancouver Canada; maybe you'll be competing or visiting in the 2010 Olympics. Either way, you're guaranteed to be shocked and amazed by these bits of Vancouver BC trivia facts!
Vancouver BC Trivia:
- The “babes in the woods” case remains unsolved: in 1953 the skeletons of two children, 7 and 10 years old, were found in Stanley Park, covered with a woman’s fur coat. Nearby was a hatchet later identified as the murder weapon.
- In 1912 William Daley, the first inmate of the Oakalla Prison Farm in Burnaby, was sentenced to serve a year of hard labour for stealing fountain pens, valued over $10. From 1919 to 1959, 44 prisoners were executed by hanging; in 1936 there were several double and one triple hanging.
- On Jan. 1, 1922, at 2 a.m. motor vehicles in British Columbia switched from driving on the left to driving on the right hand of the street. This bit of Vancouver BC trivia is almost 100 years old!
- On June 9, 1933, Vancouver BC city council allows men to go "topless" on city beaches.
- In Heritage Hall, at Main & East 16th Street, there are fossils embedded in the marble that lines the entrance.
- The “One-Armed Jailer” was a man of great talents: John Clough was the first keeper of the dog pound in 1886, the jailer and caretaker of Vancouver’s first prison, as well as the city’s lamplighter. Back then cows, steers and horses were common guests in the pound; chickens, roosters, rabbits, ferrets and pot-bellied pigs are current and past visitors.
- The first Vancouver BC police patrol car was a Hudson Speedster, seized in 1911 as a stolen car from Los Angeles. The U.S. insurance company sold it to the police rather than drive it back to California on gravel roads. This is a classic piece of Vancouver BC trivia.
- The “Official Band of Vancouver” is the Vancouver Police Pipe Band. Started in 1914, it is the oldest police pipe band in Canada. The band has performed in Holland, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bali, Edinburgh, Mexico City and the U.S. Members play during their vacation time and at their personal expense.
- Filming a production on GVRD property can cost up to $3,000 per day plus supervision fees of at least $55 per hour, depending on the location (the GVRD boardroom cost $2,500 a day in 2004). More than 140 productions were filmed in parks in the GVRD in 2004, contributing upwards of $400,000 to park maintenance & upkeep. This Vancouver BC trivia is probably alot different today!
- “Gassy Jack” Deighton built the Globe Saloon in 24 hours by offering sawmill workers all the whiskey they could drink in exchange for labour. This was the first bar in downtown Vancouver; the first murder of a sailor was committed less than a year later. Indeed even today half the city’s murders happen in that same area, around the corner of Hastings and Main.
- The "good old days" didn't have less crime or safe streets. In downtown Vancouver BC around the turn of the century, hundreds of people were addicted to opium and alcohol, youth gangs roamed the streets robbing and terrorizing people, prostitution flourished and brothels thrived. By 1904 the police station had 27 cells, usually filled to overflowing. This is a less impressive piece of Vancouver BC trivia.
- In 1913 two men (Herman Clarke and Frank Davis) were convicted of the murder of Constable James Archibald, and hanged.
If you enjoyed Vancouver BC Trivia, you may like to read more articles about Vancouver Canada:
The copyright of the article Vancouver BC Trivia in British Columbia Travel is owned by Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen. Permission to republish Vancouver BC Trivia in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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