Old Hastings Mill Store, Vancouver

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The Old Hastings Mill Store is the oldest building in Vancouver which survived the fire of 1886 and now serves as a museum.

The Old Hastings Mill Store is Vancouver's oldest building, one a few to survive the fire of 1886 which ravaged the downtown core. After years of serving the Burrard Inlet, the Hastings Mill Store building was moved by barge in 1930 to its current location near Point Grey in Pioneer Park just off English Bay. Filled with thousands of artifacts dating from before the establishment of the settlement of Vancouver and more recent donations, the Old Hastings Mill Store Museum is a great place to check out some interesting photos, items and keepsakes of settlers and new immigrants to the city. Run by the Native Daughters of British Columbia, this informative and interesting heritage experience is great for locals and visitors to the city.

Sitting on the edge of English Bay in Pioneer Park is a building unlike any around it. New homes have come and gone over time, this building however, since the 1930s has been untouched by time.

The Old Hastings Mill Store, now the Old Hastings Mill Store Museum has for years amassed a collection of priceless objects, pictures and artifacts - some unique, some rare and some truly odd and fascinating.

Run by the Native Daughters of British Columbia, the museum in itself its an exhibit - built in 1867, it served as a store, selling groceries, supplies and other necessities to the new city and the nearby lumber mill as well as operating as the first Post Office, Library and Community Centre in the area. The Store however, faced its most trying time in June of 1886 when Vancouver was levelled by a fire that swept through the entire city. The building remained untouched, serving as a supply store, morgue, hospital and shelter for the hundreds who found themselves homeless.

The Old Hastings Mill Store served the city faithfully through its recovery - although the push for modernization soon became the site's downfall. With the closing and tearing down of the Mill, the Store that was so closely tied to it was also slated for destruction. The Native Daughters of Vancouver learned of the downfall of this important piece of Vancouver history and set out to save the Store, raising money and having it pulled from the ground and taken by barge to the shores of Point Grey on June 29, 1930.

Efforts to restore the building were carried out and in 1932 the Old Hastings Mill Store was opened as a Museum, cataloguing artifacts, photos and donated personal items relevant to Vancouver's History. Some of its most prolific items were the charred remains of tools and heirlooms owned by early settlers who watched their city burn in 1886.

The Store, now in its element as a Museum on the shores of English Bay, is open to the public throughout the year - weekends during the fall and spring, and every day but Mondays in the summer months.

Visited by hundreds of people from around the world, it has amassed an amazing array of items spanning decades of history and telling the unique stories of people living, immigrating and changing in Vancouver, British Columbia.