Here are four more houses on the 1000 block of Seymour Street, showing how low-density and relatively unchanged the Downtown South area remained as recently as 1981. We don’t have any records for who the builders of these houses were; 1010 at the northern (left hand) end of the row appears on the 1901 insurance map. The others were all built around
In 1905 the resident of 1010 was shown as Hill Peppard, speculator, although elsewhere in the same publication he’s described as a horse dealer. By 1908 all four houses were occupied: Waldron Edgecombe, a bookkeeper lived at 1010, Norman Thomas, foreman was at 1022, Thomas Smirl, a millwright was at 1026, and Rose McDade was running a rooming house at 1032. From the frequent name changes it seems likely that some of the houses were rented; in 1911 Mrs Emma Walch lived at 1010, Norman Reynolds was at 1022 and Mary Bernahrd, widow of Jacob, was at 1032. Only Thomas Smirl was still in the same home as three years earlier. Alonzo Reynolds appears to have been an owner, because he added a frame shop to the building in 1909 (where he operated his business as a cigar maker). Emma Walch was aged 26, and was a housekeeper living with her six-year-old son George. Bother mother and son had been born in the US. In the census of 1911 Thomas was shown as Thomas Smerle, a millwright living with his wife Hughena; both born in Ontario, Their 17-year old son, William, and 13-year-old daughter, also Hughene, had both been born in BC. They had a lodger living with them; Henry Norris. In the street directory Thomas was a foreman at Robertson and Hackett, a sash and door manufacturer with a factory at Granville Bridge.
The houses were cleared and eventually replaced with ‘Level’ – a condo tower that the owners have for the time offered as furnished apartments. There are also three floors of office space in the building’s northern podium.
Image source City of Vancouver Archives CVA 779-E06.35
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Changing Vancouver 