Parking tickets, not civic pride, trigger request to name West End lane
Vancouver city council will hear a proposal today to rename a downtown lane “Hailstone Street” after one of the original owners of “District Lot 185,” now Vancouver’s West End.
This is not for history’s sake, nor is it an act of civic pride.
Parking enforcement has requested that the lane east of Thurlow Street and south of Melville be designated a “street” in order to facilitate the issuing of parking tickets.
Due to the “unique configuration” of this commercial lane, states a city manager’s report, “parking enforcement staff are unable to issue tickets with their Palmpilots and must instead issue a manual ticket, causing delays in the ticket being entered into the electronic system.”
The importance of efficient issuance of parking tickets notwithstanding, it’s worth noting that William Hailstone, arguably one of the fathers of West Coast real estate speculation, has been long overdue for such an honour.
In November 1862, failed Cariboo gold prospectors William Hailstone, Sam Brighouse and John Morton staked to purchase 550 acres — now Vancouver’s West End — from the Crown for the price of 114 pounds, 11 shillings and eight pence ( then $ 555.75).
Vancouver Archives documents show the land was bordered on the north by Burrard Inlet, on the south by English Bay and on the east and west by “government reserves.”
The late Eric Nicol wrote in his book Vancouver that the city’s birth could be traced back to these three men, and a lump of coal. When Brighouse saw a gleaming piece of Burrard Inlet coal in the window of a shop in New Westminster, his mind ran “from coal, to clay, to money.”
Brighouse, the son of a Yorkshire potter, recalled how his father had always said the best clay was found close to coal seams. Brighouse found clay on the claim and figured he could extract it for fine china. Unfortunately, the clay was sandy, and only suitable for bricks.
The purchase was regarded as foolishly overpriced and, wrote Nicol, local pundits scoffed that “the three ‘ greenhorn’ Englishmen had squandered their grubstake” The land was dubbed “The Brickmakers Claim,” and the foolish investors were thereafter known as “The Three Greenhorns.”
The hapless investors were unable to make the land profitable.
Hailstone returned to Britain and, according to a Vancouver Archives, left his affairs in the hands of a real estate agent, stating, “Oh, some old fool will come along some day and buy it off me when Vancouver grows.”
The three greenhorns sold the pieces off by section. None got rich. Brighouse moved to Richmond and Morton retained enough of the land to become well- to- do. Both secured public honours: Richmond features a Samuel Brighouse elementary school, and Richmond- Brighouse Canada Line station. A street near English Bay bears Morton’s name.
“Had they held on to the land they would have gone from three greenhorns to three wise men,” said deputy assessor for BC Assessment Grant Mcdonald. “That land would now be worth $ 13.85 billion on the 2012 roll for assessed value.”