Coquitlam
by Hazel Postma
The name Coquitlam comes from the Salish word kwayhquitlum, referring to a small salmon, vital to the existence of the Coast Salish, the area’s first inhabitants. In 1863 Col. R.C. Moody’s Royal Engineers pushed through a trail they called the North Road from New Westminster to the shores of ice-free Burrard Inlet. North Road still exists, is one of the municipality’s busiest roads and serves as the Coquitlam-Burnaby boundary.
Frank Ross and James McLaren built Fraser Mills in 1887, the largest mill in B.C. at the time. Fraser Mills formed the nucleus of the district and by 1908 the town boasted 20 houses, a store, post office, hospital, office block, barber shop, pool hall and four police officers.
On August 22, 1891, the District of Coquitlam, covering almost 18,000 hectares, was born. R.B. Kelly was the first reeve and schoolmaster R.D. Irvine was the first district clerk. Jean Baptiste Dicaire, who had arrived in 1904 from Quebec, returned home in 1909 to fetch some of his compatriots. Some 110 arrived and a townsite named Maillardville, after a young French oblate, Father Maillard, grew up north of the mill.
From the beginning Coquitlam was a multicultural community, home to Europeans, East Indians, Chinese and Japanese. Community spirit was fostered through baseball, hockey, lacrosse, the formation of a French-Canadian band and many religious festivities. Industry began with companies like the Dominion Match Factory and a paper plant on North Road. And, reflecting one of the area’s economic mainstays, a farmer’s marker flourished in the early 1900s.
The Walton and Johnson families were the first to homestead east Coquitlam while Obe and Bertha Pollard homesteaded in northeast Coquitlam near Minnekhada Farms an area transformed into a regional park in 1981. The area’s first school opened in 1905 with Dorothy Eldridge teaching 29 pupils. Millside School, for the children of millworkers, opened in 1907. The first volunteer fire brigade was formed in 1912.
Riverview Psychiatric Hospital opened as Colony Farm in 1910, operating out of a hay barn on 404 hectares. Sixty patients were admitted the first year, working on the farm to provide food for themselves and staff. By 1950 Riverview was home to 6,000 patients and employed many Coquitlam residents. Today it has been greatly downsized.
The effects of the Great Depression hit the area hard. Fraser Mills laid off most of its workers, and by 1931 wage reductions resulted in a bitter strike. Police were called to control strikers but Maillardville rallied around its people, establishing soup kitchens with donations from Chinese sympathizers, Fraser Valley farmers and fishers. Six weeks later the strike was over. Workers received few gains and many of the leaders were blacklisted. However the strike provided the impetus for the later unionization of Fraser Mills.
Residents were shocked when district councillor Tommy Douglas was gunned down in his North Road gas station in July, 1934. Douglas had run provincially for the United Front, a Socialist party, and speculation at the time centred on a political assassination.
World War II brought prosperity as wages rose, business flourished and women entered the workforce. Life grew easier and Coquitlam’s people began to develop the social, cultural and recreational life of their community.
Then disaster struck in late May, 1948, when the Fraser River flooded much of Fraser Mills and parts of Maillardville. Eight days later the west dike at Riverview’s Colony Farms broke children took to the water, fishing from flat-bottomed boats while older siblings helped with sandbag duty. Dead cattle floated downstream from Fraser Valley farms.
The completion of the Lougheed Highway in 1953 brought more residents and led to the formation of neighborhoods like Harbour Chines and Ranch Park. In 1959 Westwood Motorsport Park opened, the only European-style racing circuit in Canada. Thirty-one years later it closed and the provincial government sold the land for residential development.
In 1972 Coquitlam MLA Dave Barrett led the NDP to victory and became premier of British Columbia. In the 1970s population growth shifted north to Eagle Ridge and in 1979 that growth was acknowledged with the opening of the big Coquitlam Centre Mall. Throughout the 1980s more retail and commercial outlets opened and residents poured into the area. In 1989 a 4,500- house development on the Westwood Plateau began, driving Coquitlam’s population to more than 80,000. New firehalls were built and the Poirier Library opened. In 1991 the Town Centre Stadium opened in time for the district’s 100th anniversary and its metamorphosis into a city. During the early 1990s Coquitlam hosted the B.C. Summer Games and the B.C. Special Olympics. Currently Coquitlam plans a cultural centre and new civic and public safety buildings in its town centre, joining an aquatic centre, Douglas College and a new secondary school.
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