One-hundred-and-fifty years ago today, John Deighton arrived on the south shore of Burrard Inlet in a dugout canoe. Within 24 hours he had set up a makeshift bar and was selling booze to workers from nearby Stamp’s Mill.
Deighton named his establishment the Globe Saloon, after a bar he had owned in New Westminster. He was a big talker, hence his nickname, Gassy Jack.
“He was a Yorkshireman, fat, florid and full of fun,” said a July 12, 1927, story in The Province. “Withal he was a past master of the art of invective, and had a ready wit and a flair for inventing nicknames.”
A tiny settlement quickly sprang up around his saloon, a squatter’s shack that was just outside the Stamp’s Mill timber lease. (Stamp’s Mill became Hastings Mill.) In 1870 the colonial government dubbed it Granville, after Britain’s secretary of state for the colonies. But many people continued to call the fledgling metropolis Gassy’s Town, or Gastown, after Gassy Jack.
bit.ly/2RnZuPj via @VancouverSun
