349 Railway Street
We’re not sure exactly when this warehouse was built, but it was probably approved in 1909. The building didn’t exist in 1909, and had been completed by 1910 when it was owned by G H Cottrell, who leased some of it to the Alberta British Columbia Grain & Supply Co. However, a couple of references in The Province suggest Mr Cottrell acquired, rather than built the warehouse. They reported in 1908 “Designs for a new three-story brick and concrete public storage warehouse to be erected for Mr. A. C. Flumerfelt of Victoria on Railway street, near Gore avenue, have Just been completed by Mr. A. A. Cox, architect, of Montreal, who is now in the city. Construction work will be started shortly. The building will be 132×66 feet, It will be completed next May, and will cost $30,000.” By March 1909 the building had become five storeys.
Mr Flumerfelt was from Markham, Ontario, and arrived in Victoria after working in Winnipeg, and held interests in valuable mines, lumber and other investments throughout BC. He lived in a big house in Victoria that he had designed by Samuel Maclure in 1896. In December 1915 he was appointed Minister of Finance and Agriculture in the BC Government.
The earliest reference to the address in the press is from 1910, when there was an auction at Mr Cottrell’s address of cases of ‘syrup, corn starch, household starch and the finest grades of laundry starch’. The earliest permit we can find is from 1911 when Mr Cottrell spent $20,000 on repairs, hiring Baynes and Horie to carry out the work.
Mr Cottrell still owned the building in 1920, and his company carried out further repairs in 1927, and in 1929 when Baynes and Horie were hired again.
Mr Cottrell was in Vancouver in 1899, when he was ticket agent for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and in 1903 he was offering space in his warehouse (former Wilson Bros) on Water Street. He had an office in 139 Water in 1909, when he was offering ‘Warehouse to Rent, one or two floors on railway siding’. In 1910 his advert changed to read ‘Burnt Out, but still doing business in my other storage warehouses’. He developed another warehouse on Cambie Street in 1911, and his address switched to 349 Railway in August 1911, after the work here. While he claimed to be the architect of the repair work here in 1911, he hired Parr and Fee to design a building in 1910 on Powell, and the Cambie Street warehouse as well as designing alterations to his Water Street building in 1911 (the year after George’s mother died).
In 1915 the Pacific Importing Co applied to transfer their wholesale licence from here to a Beatty Street warehouse, and a month later Henry Cheshyre Janion applied for a wholesale liquor licence for the building. Seven men were arrested that year after stealing $1,000 of goods.
In the 1920s it was home to Martin and Matthews, who stocked a complete selection of Ferodo Bonded Asbestos Brake Linings (Made in England). In 1929 Mr Cottrell and four men were pumping tupentine from a tanker car on the siding behind the warehouse into drums, when there was a fire. Two men had burns serious enough to end up in hospital, and the warehouse stock suffered smoke damage.
In 1930 there was break in, and $10 was stolen from the office. That year Samuel Gilfix distributed Carillon Cheese, from Ottawa, from the warehouse, ‘full of body-building goodness’. Weber and Thompson operated from here in 1931, BC and Alberta agents for Gold Dust washing powder, and also Gold Dust non-freezable shoe polish, both manufactured in Hamilton.
Martin, Matthews and Hammond were still occupying space in 1932, and had added Monarch Batteries from Kingston, Ontario as well as Defiance spark plugs and the Atlas Hydro Hoist, manufactured in Esquimalt and capable of raising a car five feet into the air in one minute. In 1933 37 cases of tinned milk (worth $300) were stolen from the premises, and to add insult to injury the burglars stole a company truck to transport the goods. Two men were arrested ten days later. In 1939 two juveniles were apprehended on the premises with ‘a variety of stolen goods’.
In 1947 the building was sold for $80,000 by F H and H C Cottrell and M E Dunlop to F C Myers Ltd. Cottrell’s built a new $100,000 warehouse on Terminal Avenue. Before the company could move, a light-fingered delivery driver stole six radios, while collecting generators from the warehouse. Fred C Myers ran a wholesale hardware business here, and in 1950 it was a distributor for the Astral baby refrigerator, which was made in Toronto and cost $153.50. (The Bank of Canada inflation calculator says that would be $1,947.15 in 2024!)
That year there was a fire that caused minor damage. In 1960 there was a prolonged strike by warehouse workers who were members of the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union. That year the company were selling the Maxaw 727 circular saw for $59.95 ($623 in 2024 dollars) and the matching saw table for $39.95 ($415) when bought with a saw. It was a Father’s Day special – ‘Here’s what Dad needs to complete his vacation-time projects’. In 1963 the warehouse, and Myers business, was bought by the expanding McLellan McFeely & Prior Co for around a million dollars.
In 1972 Mr George Martin occupied the warehouse, and was looking for a salesman to sell to the food, drug and shoe trade. Mr Martin sought the past experience and marital status of applicants. The building was vacant and available for lease in 1974 at between 65c and $1.45 a foot. In 1977 it was for sale for $319,000.
The 4-storey warehouse was for sale again in 1985 for $599,000 (later dropped to $525,000) – rents brought in $84,000 a year. In 1988 Interstyle Warehousing owned the building, which it was leased to 29 artists, members of the Artists for Creative Environment Society. They hoped to buy the building, create artists live/work studios and receive a $20,000 grant from the City of Vancouver to install fire safety improvements. The grant was not supported and the artists were forced to find new premises, and the Waterfront Employers of BC moved in (now known as B.C. Maritime Employers Association). Robert Naish was one of the artists, and he photographed the building, (which is not in the Vancouver Archives collection). We think the top floor was added before the Waterfont Employers moved here, in 1989, but we haven’t identified an architect. The B.C. Maritime Employers Association still occupy offices here.
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