New Westminster Environmental Almanac (2917 ... - Douglas College

New Westminster’s shoreline downriver from the bridges (rail, Pattullo,
and SkyBridge), all the way to the Burnaby border near the
Queensborough Bridge, was home to light and heavy industrial
businesses from the early days of the City to the mid 1980s. Major
enterprises included lumber mills, a paper mill, a chemical plant, gravel
and rock supply, foundries and iron/metal work, railroad, and fish
canneries.
Other business in the same area included shipping and storage, docking
facilities, ice making and cold storage, a woollen mill, an evaporator
plant, grain and feed supply, minor boat works, a Public Works
Fraser Mills , 1905
Department wharf, and railway storage area. It is also important to
remember that the Queensborough side of the river had a major
concentration of mills, canneries, foundries, pipe manufacturers, boat
and shipbuilding, an aircraft repair site, and an array of smaller activities.
Note also that Poplar Island was used as a shipbuilding site during World
War I.
Just inland from this waterfront area of industry and associated
businesses, a number of other industrial sites of various sizes operated
for many years. These included streetcar manufacturing, foundry and
metal work, a gas works and an electric plant, a tannery, shipping and
cartage, and blacksmith shops, as well as City markets, cigar
11
Historical Land Use
New Westminster Public Library