The Delta Museum and Archives Society has launched Our Delta Stories, a project that asks community members to share their favourite Delta story in 250 words or less. The stories will be posted to the society’s social media pages and website, while some will also be printed in the Optimist. Here’s a look back courtesy of Delta Coun. Sylvia Bishop:
My parents discovered Tsawwassen right after the George Massey Tunnel (then known as the Deas Island Tunnel) opened in 1959.
Highway 17 was a two-lane road. Thriving farmland bordered the route. At the corners of highways 10 and 17, we sometimes got stopped in the lineup of cars leaving the Paterson Park Racetrack where sulkies were the draw.
In Tsawwassen at the corner of 56th Street and 12th Avenue, there was one gas station and one shopping centre with the only grocery store in town. Fresh produce could be purchased from farmers’ stands on 56th Street.
The lot my parents purchased and built their dream house on is on 5th Avenue near English Bluff. That was 1966 and the house still stands today. The street was a dead end with only a dozen houses on it. At the end of the street was a field. If you got up early enough and walked down to the field, you could see where deer had lain the night before leaving their impression on the grass.
Many people living along English Bluff owned horses. It was not unusual to hear the clip-clop of horses’ hooves coming down the road.
Sixth Avenue was a gravel road and South Delta Secondary was just being built. Tsawwassen students were bussed into Ladner to attend Delta Secondary, a practice which stopped once South Delta opened. I just missed out attending the new school. I’ve included a photo of my Grade 12 homeroom class. I’m in the middle row, third from the right.
The finest burgers in town could be had at the Tsawwassen Drive Inn, on 56th Street near 16th Avenue. The Dairy Queen came later. We hung out at the DQ after watching Pacers games at Delta Secondary.
There was no bus service. No pool. No arena. We’d have to get a ride to go ice skating at Boundary Bay Airport in one of the old hangars. For fun we’d walk to Centennial Beach or take the 100 stairs down English Bluff to Tsawwassen Beach. Those stairs were rickety and nowhere near as fancy or safe as today’s stairs at Fred Gingell Park.
By the late 1960s the move to the suburbs was in full swing; 5th Avenue became a through street, houses were popping up along the forested stretches of English Bluff and 6th Avenue was paved. It was a building frenzy with houses competing with commercial properties for development space.
Much has changed since the 1960s but one thing remains the same: We all love Delta.
