In 1901 Almeron Soper Cross was owner of a general store in Atlin with his partner, Edward Rorke who was also his son-in-law (There’s no sign in the census records that year of his wife, Elizabeth; his daughter, Edith, was also living in Atlin but was recorded as head of her own household). In 1903 he was appointed as a Justice of the Peace ‘to perform the duties of a County court Judge’. He was also appointed a licence commissioner.
Mr Cross obviously did well in Atlin as this splendid $6,500 house on Nelson Street was designed in 1906 by Grant and Henderson and completed by 1907 (the permit was issued in February 1906). The Cross family were listed in the Vancouver street directory for the first time in 1907; Edward was a broker with the firm of LaCappellain and Rorke. Mr Cross added a ‘frame stable’ to the property in 1909. This 1908 panorama of the street shows the significant houses that had been built in the previous few years.
The 1911 Census shows Almeron Cross was born in Ontario in 1854 (so by then aged 57) to an originally Irish protestant family. He married his wife Elizabeth in 1878 in Thornbury, Ontario and their daughter was born in Toronto in 1880. Edward and Edith lived with her parents, and there were two domestic servants as well. Mr Cross moved in 1915 to West 38th Ave in Dunbar, and died early in 1920, aged 65.
The 1968 photograph shows the house close to the end of its life. By 1972 there would be a 10 storey rental tower, the Dogwood Apartments in its place.
Picture source City of Vancouver Archives, 1968 CVA 1348-2 and 1908 PAN P-103
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Changing Vancouver 