Vancouver’s first council is locked out of its new city hall
Few Vancouverites have heard of Ephraim Blair Sentell. But when he died on Nov. 16, 1948, he rated obituaries in both The Vancouver Sun and Province.
Why? Because Sentell and his three brothers built Vancouver’s first city hall in September 1886.
The two-storey wooden structure was finished in a month, but there was a catch — the city didn’t have the money to pay them. So the Sentells locked the city out of city hall for two weeks until they got paid.
Oddly, the local newspaper at the time, the Vancouver News, didn’t carry any reports about the dispute — it only said the building was completed on Oct. 14 and that the contract money had been paid.
But Vancouver’s legendary archivist Maj. James Matthews had heard the story, and on June 14, 1933, he talked to Ephraim’s brother Frederick about it.
“I came to Vancouver (in 1886), and three days after arrival here, got the contract to build the first city hall and courtroom, the one on the north side of Powell Street between Westminster Avenue and Columbia Street,” he said.
“It was about twenty-five feet wide and sixty feet deep; narrow side facing Powell Street; the contract price was $1,280 and I had to put up a deposit of good faith of 50 dollars. I commenced construction about the first of September in 1886, and it was finished in thirty days.”
During construction, he had some problems with the alderman in charge of the building committee, E.P. Hamilton.
“I have very unpleasant memories of him,” said Frederick Sentell.
“There were a good many extras wanted; I put them in at my own expense, but Alderman Hamilton said to me one day that there was a clause in the contract which said that the extras were to be put in without extra cost, and I replied, somewhat heatedly, ‘Is that so!’
“Hamilton said one day, before the building was constructed, ‘If a man puts his head in a noose, he deserves to have the rope pulled.’ I did not forget that remark.”
When the building was finished, Sentell “began to enquire about my money. Somehow I found out that I was not likely to be paid; I only had $2,000 and to tie up my money would have crippled my business, so I would not give up the keys.”
Eventually, the city relented and cut a cheque. But the Sentells never did get the money for the “extras” they put in.
Sentell’s account of building city hall was published in Matthews’ seven-volume Early Vancouver, which the city archives has scanned and put online.
He also did architectural sketches of the building for Matthews, which are in the archives collection. They show a simple but elegant building with wood siding and a hipped roof; the main ornamentation was “heavy brackets” on the corners of the roof “hand made out of cedar.” If you didn’t know it was city hall, you might think it was a house.
The first floor had offices for the mayor and city officials in front and a jail with four cells in the back. The council chambers were upstairs.
As Vancouver boomed, the small building at 147-151 Powell quickly became too small, and in November 1897 city hall moved into the Market Hall at 415 Westminster Avenue (which is now Main Street).
The old city hall was a police station until 1909, when the cops moved out and the city turned it into offices for its Ornamental Street Lighting and Street Permit and Maintenance departments.
Unfortunately, the city didn’t seem to do much upkeep on the structure, and in the fall of 1922 it was condemned.
On Dec. 4, 1922, the Vancouver World did a story on the old building. According to G.R. Gordon of the Vancouver Pioneers Association, the land for the building was donated by Dr. Israel Powell of Powell Street fame, who had extensive property holdings in the area.
The Sentells got the job because Frederick knew Gordon from Granite Creek, now a ghost town near Coalmont.
“The city had no money and no power to levy taxes until the next year, but it wanted a city hall in the worst way,” the World reported. “Mr. Fred Sentell and his brothers Ephraim, George and Alfred had the money and the ability to build the hall.”
So they got the job, although it took a while to get paid.