Ships at anchor, waiting to be loaded at the Moody Mill. (1872)
© City of Vancouver Archives - MIL P43 Photo by David Withrow.

The first settler of the North Shore can be traced back to 1860, when a sawmill was built to harvest the trees. A few years later, the mill near bankruptcy, a American from the state of Maine by the name of Sewell Prescott Moody, bought the sawmill and quickly brought it back to profitability.   

Sewell Prescott Moody died in 1875 when the ship he was on sank in a storm off Cape Flattery while on its way to San Francisco. The townsite that grew and the sawmill quickly became known as Moodyville. 

Clearing the land and harvesting the trees, settlers started building homes and developing the North Shore. The first area to be developed is what is now known as Lower Lonsdale. From there, the development grew up the slopes and out to the east and west.  

For a while, the upper reaches of Lonsdale Avenue, went by the name of “Pig Alley” because the residents kept pigs...  and the winding road up toward the lower reaches of Mount Seymour was known as “Snake Hill”. 

Saint Paul's Catholic Church was first built as chapel in 1862, by a missionary order. The small chapel stood in the middle of the Squamish Indian village until it was rebuilt as a larger church in 1884. 

Today, the church still stands in the southern portion of the Mission Reserve in Lower Lonsdale. The Mission Reserve can be accessed from Third Street or from the western end of Esplanade Avenue (see maps). 

By 1890, there were approximately 100 people residing on the North Shore. A formal petition was made to the Lieutenant Governor and The District Municipality of North Vancouver was declared in 1891. 

Moodyville, the original townsite to the east of Lower Lonsdale was excluded from the new municipality at the request of the proprietors of the mill.  

The new municipality was 259 sq. km. (100 sq.mi.) and stretched from Horseshoe Bay in the west to Deep Cove and the western shore of Indian Arm in the east. 
 

Ferry traffic started decreasing when the Second Narrows Bridge was built in 1925. However, the bridge turned out to be quite unreliable as being built too low and having a basculee to let ships through on the shallow south end of the narrows, it was hit and put out of commission frequently. 

The ferries were in continuous operation until the construction of the Lions Gate Bridge in 1937, when they became uneconomical. The North Vancouver No.1 finished its life as a residence on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

 
The Senator in 1890: One of the early ferries. 
© City of Vancouver Archives BO P62 

 
The North Vancouver No.1 1900 to 1925 
© City of Vancouver Archives BO P533

The beginning of the 20th century brought rapid growth to the North Shore’s townsite in Lower Lonsdale. The photo at left and the photo below show the same section of Lonsdale Avenue, by the waterfront, and the growth that took place in four years.

By 1907,  Lonsdale and its immediate surroundings incorporated to become the City of North Vancouver. The new municipality wanted to improve the core of the city without having the financial burden for the outlying areas, where people were far apart and would require expensive services. 

The creation of the City of North Vancouver also saw the incorporation of the old original townsite of Moodyville into its boundaries. 

In 1912, the District of North Vancouver shrank further with the creation of the District of West Vancouver.

The streetcars first arrived in North Vancouver in 1906, and by 1908 they extended as far as Grand Boulevard and Lynn Valley. 

The Lonsdale Avenue streetcar conductors lived through a few hair raising adventures, as occasionally the brakes would fail on the steep descent and allowed the cars to hurl themselves into the water of the inlet at the bottom of Lonsdale...

Robert Dollar came to Canada in 1857 from his native Scotland. By the late 1880’s he was living in California and involved in shipbuilding. Around the turn of the century he started a lumber mill in Everett, Washington from which he shipped lumber all around the Pacific Rim. His ships, all adorned with a large dollar sign on their funnels were common throughout the ports of the Pacific. 

In 1916, Robert Dollar acquired a 100 acres in what is now known as the Roche Point area. Soon a townsite developed around the mill which supplied it with power from it's own generating plant. It became known as Dollarton.

The North Shore contributed to World War I from 1914-1918 by sending its men to fight in Europe, and its women to help with the war effort. During this period the shipyards located on the waterfront built many ships. World War I took a large toll on Canadians with a higher number of casualties than any other war has been involved in. 

October 1929 brought the crash of the New York stock market and introduced everyone in North America to the term “depression”. Soon local property owners who had lost their jobs started defaulting on their taxes. The District which had borrowed money to build up its infrastructure, was forced into bankruptcy in December 1932 and a commissioner was appointed by the Provincial Government to take over. The District would not have representative government until 1951. 
The City had lean times too, but it operated the ferry system to Vancouver and was able to sustain itself, even if only barely.

Repeating the efforts it had made during the “Great War” the North Shore returned to ship building when World War II broke out on September 1, 1939. In a matter of months, the worries of the depression were replaced by the worries of war. Burrard Dry-dock hummed into life and activity. Canadian National ships that had used to carry passengers to Asia were refitted to serve as troop carriers for the D-Day invasion, while many cargo ships were built to help the war effort. 

1942 saw the demise of the Dollar Mill. Robert Dollar had died in 1932 and the business had been declining for a few years. Taken over in 1942 by North West Bay Company, they closed the mill a few months later preferring to retain the lumber assets Robert Dollar had built up over the years. Today, only the name Dollarton remains as a reminder of the once proud business.

The fifties and sixties saw great growth throughout the North Shore. 1954 brought the official opening of the Cleveland Dam, destined to provide fresh water to growing Vancouver. The new Second Narrows Bridge was built in 1958, bringing new stimulus to the eastern part of the North Shore.  

The Upper Levels Highway, the main east-west connector was being built during the sixties, including the large bridge over the Capilano River. (The highway was extended out to Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver in the early 70’s.)