We looked at a different view of the Richmond Apartments in a post a few years ago. The building was developed by Edward Hunt in 1910, and designed by W T Whiteway. C P Shindler built the $70,000 building, seen here in 1945. There were three Edward Hunts living in Vancouver in 1911, one a fireman for the CPR, one a building contactor, and one a retired 57 year old, living in an apartment on Robson – in this building. He first arrived in the city in 1910, when he stayed in the newly built Homer Apartments on Smithe Street. He was English, (born in Gloucestershire in 1855) and married to Florence, who was American, and thirty years younger than her husband. Edward had arrived in Canada in 1876 (seven years before his wife was born), and to British Columbia in 1888, while Florence had arrived in 1903.
In 1901 Edward Hunt was living in Richmond, shown as aged 47, and a merchant, living with his English wife Louisa, who was also 47, and their son, Edward S Hunt. The street directory tells us he was the Postmaster, and a General Merchant in Steveston. Edward Hunt was living in Vancouver in 1891, with his wife, son and mother, and they each had a store. Edward’s was a grocer’s store at the corner of Nelson and Hornby, while his mother, Emily (who was then aged 69) ran a grocers on the Westminster Road (Main Street today).
He moved to Richmond in the early 1890s. He was elected to Steveston Council in 1893, was working for the Steveston Cannery Co in 1894 and set up a general store there in 1895. He split with his former business partner, J A Fraser in the same year, expanded it in 1896 and was one of three owners of the Steveston Cannery, capitalised at $50,000 in that same year. His store later became the Walker Emporium and was on the corner of Moncton Street and 2nd Avenue. He was a magistrate in Richmond in 1900, and the first to sign a requisition to call out the militia to prevent violence during a strike by Fraser River fishermen. He was on the Council again in 1898 and from 1900 to 1902. In 1907 he became Reeve of Steveston, when this picture was published.
The census shows he was still living in his Robson apartment in 1921, but on his own, and the street directory shows him in the same apartment in 1941. He died in 1943, aged 88, recorded as a widower.
Today there’s an office building addressed as 777 Hornby, completed in 1969, and designed by Frank Roy. The architectural practice who supervised construction of the building was Thompson, Berwick, Pratt and Partners.
Image source: City of Vancouver Archives CVA 586-4162
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Changing Vancouver 