In spite of what must have been a tumult of sirens I
am embarrassed to admit that I slept through the fire that laid waste to two heritage
buildings and closed dozens of businesses in the 600 block of Columbia Street
early Thursday morning, October 10th.
In fact it was only when I was sitting in the
Belmont Cafe a few hours later that I first learned that there had been a
serious fire in the early hours and that it was still being mopped up. As
an aficionado of the arts, one of my first reactions was to wonder if the new
Anvil Centre had been engulfed. I was relieved to learn that it was still
intact and that its unusual architecture was safe.
However, as most New Westminster residents now know
(if they didn’t before), 115 years ago there was a far larger fire that
destroyed most of the city’s downtown business section on September 10, 1898. That
fire had originated in several tons of hay stored on the huge Brackman &
Ker's wharf on Front Street. In that conflagration, the New Westminster Opera
House, a major civic building, built and owned by Arthur May Herring, was also
destroyed.
Unlike in Thursday’s successful efforts, the
firemen of 1898 were unable to control the blaze. Once it was over, one-third
of the city had been destroyed. Included in the destruction were such public
buildings as the YMCA and the public library. Although it was not, strictly
speaking, a public building, New Westminster’s Herring Opera House was destroyed.
The structure, which had been erected in
1887, was 50 feet by 130 feet and accommodated, depending on the source
referenced, between 800 and 1200 people. It had opened four years before one was
built in Vancouver.
It is likely that Herring’s pharmacy business
located at 85-6th Street was also destroyed in the fire. It is also
possible that if this loss did occur it may have prompted Herring to run for
Council that year. In any event, he was elected an alderman in the City of New
Westminster in 1898.
For the record, A.M. Herring was also an Alderman in 1893 and 1894.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information. We will update our entry as soon as possible.
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