"Barnet Lumber Company" found 1 record

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Heritage Value: Located on the shore of Burrard Inlet, these poured concrete piers of the smokestack burner and the former boiler and plant of the North Pacific Lumber Company are among the only remains of the once-thriving industrial site located on the waterfront on the south shore of Burrard Inlet. The sawmill and the Village of Barnet were initiated by David MacLaren, a wealthy lumberman from Buckingham, Quebec, who had previously established the Fraser Mills in Coquitlam in 1889. McLaren gambled that a sawmill on the main line of the C.P.R near Vancouver would serve the Canadian domestic market and be a profitable venture. The North Pacific Lumber Company established itself on this peninsula on Burrard Inlet and was fully operational in 1900. In 1909, the mill was completely burned out by a fire starting in the boiler room. Immediately the plant was rebuilt, modern in every respect and absolutely fireproof, as the entire power plant and boiler room was built of reinforced concrete and steel, of which these ruins are the last remains. The plant closed during the First World War and reopened as the Barnet Lumber Company in 1925 only to close forever in 1931 after a strike during the Great Depression.