History of New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada

New Westminster, BC, incorporated as a city in 1860, is located on the north bank of the FRASER RIVER, 20 km east of Vancouver. Surveyed by the Royal Engineers and named by Queen Victoria, "The Royal City" was established in 1859 by Governor James DOUGLAS as the capital of British Columbia.

New Westminster, western Canada's oldest city, was the mercantile centre and the transportation hub on the mainland during and after the FRASER RIVER and CARIBOO gold rushes, but never displaced VICTORIA's overall dominance, due to the latter's easier access to ocean shipping. In 1868, the Legislative Council chose Victoria as the permanent capital of the recently united colonies of BC and Vancouver Island.

Although New Westminster secured a Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) branch line in 1886, the completion of the main line to Vancouver in 1887 further relegated it to secondary rank. Nevertheless the city remained an important freshwater port, a major lumber producer, a salmon canning centre, a commercial centre for the Fraser Valley and an administrative and service headquarters with such institutions as the County Court, the BC Penitentiary, the Provincial Mental Hospital and the Royal Columbian Hospital. The city also secured rail links to the United States via the Great Northern Railway and Fraser River Railway Bridge (1904); to the eastern Fraser Valley via the BC Electric Railway (1910); and to eastern Canada via the Canadian National Railway (1915).