The sleet came in over the harbour on Saturday 12 November 1938, and still people came. They walked out onto a bridge that was now open to everyone, toward the far shore at West Vancouver. The first day belonged to them — not to a ribbon, not to a car.
The Lions Gate Bridge opened for public use on Saturday 12 November 1938, to people on foot. Cars had to wait until Monday 14 November. A ceremony and a royal drive in May 1939 are also called “the opening”. Four dates, four different things — and none of them is a mistake. Each marks a different moment, and each has its own people.
13 dates · 4 openings
September 1938
- 29Tolls announced. The Province: the bridge will open “without any ceremony”.
October 1938
- 4Mayor Miller at the railing: “People will come to see it from every part of the world.”
- 5A Board of Trade party crosses: the first traffic.
- 11West Vancouver’s reeve plans to invite the King to open it.
- 16Hundreds walk across before they are allowed to. The company bars both ends.
- 17Vancouver’s mayor hopes the King will open the bridge and the new Hotel Vancouver.
November 1938
- 4Taylor’s film: the first cars cross end to end, a rehearsal.
- 9The Province: the bridge will “open quietly”.
- 10Engineering News-Record: open this month, the dedication next summer.
- 121On footOpen to people on foot, in sleet. Our birthday.
- 142CarsCars cross, and car tolls begin. The company’s plaque says “completed”.
Six months of daily use
May 1939
- 263CeremonyThe company’s ceremony at Capilano, and a harbour salute.
- 294Royal driveKing George VI and Queen Elizabeth drive across.
What happened on Saturday 12 November 1938?
The Vancouver Sun put it on the front page that same day: the bridge had “opened to pedestrian traffic today in a driving sleet storm”. The paper counted five people who claimed to have been first across, and hedged the claim it put on its own front page. (Who really went first is a story of its own: Who was first across the Lions Gate Bridge?)
“Vancouver’s magnificent new Lions’ Gate Bridge opened to pedestrian traffic today in a driving sleet storm that failed to keep enthusiastic pedestrians from striving for the honor of being first across.”
The Vancouver Sun, 12 November 1938
The big ceremony would come later. That Saturday afternoon there was only a small one: Mayor George C. Miller and Reeve J. B. Leyland met at the centre of the span and shook hands. The Sun called it a ceremony “to officially open the bridge”, with “no fanfare, no main speeches”. Then the bridge was simply open, and people used it. About 1,200 paid the pedestrian toll that Saturday, and 5,750 on the Sunday, the company said.
The bridge’s own side remembered the day the same way. A.J.T. Taylor, the bridge’s promoter, ended his colour film of the construction with a title card: the bridge “opened to traffic on Nov. 12th, 1938”. The 1939 booklet about the bridge gives the same date.
Didn’t anyone cross before that?
Yes, but only on trial.
On Tuesday 4 October 1938, Mayor George C. Miller and the former mayor G. G. McGeer stood at the railing of the new bridge. “People will come to see it from every part of the world,” Miller told The Vancouver Sun.
“People will come to see it from every part of the world.”
Mayor George C. Miller, 4 October 1938
The next day, Wednesday 5 October, a Board of Trade party crossed on a tour of inspection, after lunch at the Stanley Park pavilion. The Province said scores of businessmen walked over the new pavement, guided by Major P. A. Curry of the bridge company. The Canadian Press said a caravan of 80 cars drove over, the first traffic the bridge had carried, and told readers the public could expect to use it about 8 November.
On Sunday 16 October hundreds of people strolled across. The Province called it an “unauthorized” preview, after which the company ordered bars placed at both ends. Major Curry put it more kindly to The Vancouver Sun the next Saturday: the company had tried letting people on for half an hour. “We were swamped and had to close it again.”
“We were swamped and had to close it again.”
Major P. A. Curry, the bridge company’s general manager, on the Sunday of 16 October 1938
Then came another first. A title card in A.J.T. Taylor’s film says that 4 November 1938 “saw the first cars cross the span from end to end”. The next cards show cars waiting “for final obstructions to be cleared”, and John Anderson receiving the first ticket, marked B 00001. Anderson was Taylor’s partner. The public’s first tickets were others, both numbered 1: Mrs. Sutton’s on 12 November, for a person on foot, and Reeve Leyland’s on 14 November, The Province reported. Mayor Miller had car ticket No. 2, and Major Curry let the two men keep theirs as souvenirs. None of the 1938 newspapers we have read mentions the 4 November crossing, so we do not know who drove. It seems to have been a rehearsal for opening day.
There was even a walker. On the opening Saturday the Sun said the first private person to have walked across the new bridge was R. W. Keyserlingk of British United Press, who had crossed on the swaying cable catwalk about six months earlier.
So the bridge had been crossed by inspectors, by test cars, by one man on a wire and, for half an hour, by a crowd. It had not yet opened for good.
Why did cars have to wait until Monday?
The bridge was ready. The road onto it was not quite.
That first Saturday, the company’s general manager, Major P. A. Curry, explained, as the Sun reported, that cars would not be let on until Monday morning. The pavement on the North Shore approach, he said, “had to be given time to set properly”. The bridge itself was “completely ready for traffic of all kinds”.
It is an ordinary reason, and a useful one. It explains why two of the four dates sit only two days apart.
When could the public first drive across?
On Monday 14 November 1938 there was a line at the gate. Douglas Craig and Jimmy Pratt had queued since 11 o’clock the night before to be the first car north, and the line held 15 or 20 cars when the gate opened. The Sun said they were probably the first people to sleep on the bridge. C. H. Chamberlain of Lower Capilano drove the first car southbound, The Province reported; the Sun printed his name as Charles Charleston. From that Monday, cars crossed and paid tolls.
Many sources call this day the opening, and they have a point. BC’s transportation ministry wished the bridge a happy birthday on its TranBC blog on 14 November 2012. The Canadian Encyclopedia gives 14 November as the day the bridge opened to traffic. The Vancouver Heritage Foundation’s page on the bridge describes its commemorative plaque as marking the bridge’s completion on 14 November 1938. The plaque is the company’s own. It was unveiled on 29 May 1939, and the Sun photographed it the next day: “The Lions’ Gate Bridge, completed November 14th 1938”, followed by the engineers, the builders and the directors.
The 1939 bridge booklet seems to have kept both November dates. It says the bridge opened to traffic on 12 November, and dates the company’s franchise, its right to run the bridge as a business, from 14 November. One day for the public, one for the business.
Why was there an official opening in May 1939?
The ceremonies were never meant to come first. On 29 September 1938, when Major Curry announced the tolls, The Province’s front page said the bridge would probably open “without any ceremony”, and that “a dedication ceremony may be held in the spring”. On 10 November, two days before the first walkers, the trade magazine Engineering News-Record told its engineer readers that the bridge would open to traffic “this month”, and that the formal dedication would be put off until the next summer. The plan was public before the first footstep: use the bridge first, celebrate it later.
In Vancouver it was common knowledge. On 9 November The Province’s film columnist, Stu Keate, wrote: “Those good citizens who decided to let the Lions Gate bridge open quietly must have started something.”
The celebration came on Friday 26 May 1939. It was also the Board of Trade’s Harbor and Port Day. The day’s programme, printed in The Province, sent a harbour cruise out with a “Salute to Lions Gate Bridge dedication en route”. The Sun’s headline put “Open” in quotation marks: “Lions Gate Bridge ‘Open’ After Six Months of Use”. The bridge, the report reminded its readers, had been open for more than six months, and was taking in about $20,000 a month in tolls.
That afternoon a line of cars drove from the Stanley Park pavilion over the bridge, “with all the official dignity of a slow march”, in the Sun’s words. About seventy guests went on to the Capilano Golf and Country Club. There Allan Gentles, for the two steel contractors, handed A.J.T. Taylor a certificate signed by the consulting engineer P. L. Pratley: the bridge was finished and ready for its owners. Taylor said that his work was done and that he was leaving the company.
“This bridge, like a lusty child has been born, richly endowed in capacity to render service for long years ahead.”
A.J.T. Taylor, 26 May 1939, as printed in The Vancouver Sun
Parks Canada and BC Magazine both give 26 May 1939 as the official opening.
Did the King and Queen open the bridge?
Many people wanted them to. In October 1938, a month before the bridge opened to the public, The Province reported two plans. On 11 October, Reeve J. B. Leyland of West Vancouver meant to ask the British backers to invite Their Majesties to the ceremony. On 17 October, Mayor George C. Miller said the city would invite the King to open both the bridge and the new Hotel Vancouver. If the royal couple came in June, he said, every effort would be made to time both openings to their visit. The bridge did not wait. It opened to people on foot on 12 November.
Three days after the company’s ceremony, on Monday 29 May 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth drove across. A Canadian Press report, printed the next day in Victoria’s Daily Colonist, traced their route. They crossed the Second Narrows Bridge, drove through North Vancouver and West Vancouver, then came over the Lions Gate Bridge to the steamer for Victoria. The Lions Gate Bridge was closed to everyone else from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., The Sun had warned. The Province estimated that 75,000 to 100,000 people lined the North Shore route, from one bridge to the other. MONOVA, the museum and archives of North Vancouver, says the couple “honoured” the new bridge by crossing it. Our museum has the day’s timetable.
The Canadian Encyclopedia goes further and calls 29 May the official opening, with the royal couple presiding. Some web pages put the King and Queen at the 26 May ceremony instead. The documents are simpler. The ceremony was the company’s, on 26 May. The royal drive came three days later, on the way to a boat. The bronze tablet put up on the bridge that day says only that Their Majesties “crossed” it.
So which date is the bridge’s birthday?
Look at the records and the four dates sort themselves out. They are not four errors; they are four answers to four different questions. When could people walk across? Saturday 12 November 1938. When could cars? Monday 14 November. When did the company mark the completion? Friday 26 May 1939. When did the King and Queen drive over? Monday 29 May.
We keep the bridge’s birthday on 12 November. It is the day the bridge opened for public use. The Sun said so that day, and the bridge’s own film and a 1939 booklet about the bridge agree.
If someone asks you: The Lions Gate Bridge opened for public use on Saturday 12 November 1938, to people on foot. Cars followed on 14 November. The company’s ceremony was on 26 May 1939; the royal drive, on 29 May.
First came the walkers, in the sleet. Then the cars, then the ceremony, then the King and Queen.
Questions people ask
When did the Lions Gate Bridge open?
The Lions Gate Bridge opened for public use on Saturday 12 November 1938, when people on foot crossed in a sleet storm. Cars were allowed two days later.
When could the public first drive across the Lions Gate Bridge?
On Monday 14 November 1938, the day car tolls began. The bridge company kept cars off until then because the pavement on the North Shore approach needed time to set.
Why do some sources give 14 November 1938 as the opening date?
It was the first day for cars and car tolls. BC’s transportation ministry and The Canadian Encyclopedia use it, and a 1939 booklet about the bridge dates the company’s franchise from that day.
Did King George VI and Queen Elizabeth open the Lions Gate Bridge?
They drove across it on Monday 29 May 1939, on their way to the steamer for Victoria. The bridge company’s own official opening ceremony was three days earlier, on 26 May 1939. The Canadian Encyclopedia calls the royal drive the official opening.
Which date does lionsgatebridge.org use as the bridge’s birthday?
12 November, the day the bridge opened for public use. The Vancouver Sun reported it that day, and the bridge’s own construction film and a 1939 booklet about the bridge give the same date.
Notes and sources
Show
What we read from 1938 and 1939
- The Vancouver Daily Province, 3 November 1938, front page, the photograph “Man and Nature” by C. P. Dettloff. We read this page.
- The Vancouver Sun, 14 November 1938, page 5, “Mayor and Reeve Mark Opening of New Bridge”: the handshake at mid-span, “no fanfare, no main speeches”, and the pedestrian counts. 15 November 1938, page 12, the photograph “They Kept Their Tickets”: tickets No. 1 and No. 2.
- The Vancouver Sun, 5 October 1938, page 4, “Miller and McGeer Thrill To Scene From New Bridge”: the visit of Tuesday 4 October and Miller’s words.
- The Vancouver Sun, 22 October 1938, front page: the half-hour trial opening on Sunday 16 October, “we were swamped”.
- The Vancouver Sun, 12 November 1938, front page and page 16: the sleet storm, “opened to pedestrian traffic today”, the five people who claimed to be first, the Sun’s remark on R. W. Keyserlingk and the cable catwalk, and Major P. A. Curry’s reason for keeping cars off until Monday.
- The Vancouver Sun, 14 November 1938, front page: the Monday line at the gate, and the driver of the first southbound car, whom the Sun names Charles Charleston.
- The Vancouver Daily Province, 14 November 1938, page 9: C. H. Chamberlain of Lower Capilano as the first driver across, who told the paper he reached the north toll gate at 4 o’clock; Reeve Leyland’s ticket number one. We read this Province page. We quote short lines and do not reproduce the pages.
- The Vancouver Daily Province, 29 September 1938, front page, “First Narrows Span May Open On November 8”: “without any ceremony”, a dedication “in the spring”. 6 October 1938, page 9, “Businessmen Walk Across New Bridge”: the walk of 5 October. 17 October 1938, page 2, the photograph “Over the Lions Gate”: the “unauthorized” Sunday preview and the bars. 3 October 1938, page 5: the Board of Trade’s engineering bureau to tour the bridge on Wednesday. 11 October 1938, front page, “King May Be Invited To Dedicate Bridge”: Reeve Leyland’s plan. 17 October 1938, front page, “City Will Invite King George To Open New Hotel, Bridge”: Mayor Miller’s hope. 9 November 1938, page 8, Stu Keate’s column “The Screen This Week”: “open quietly”. 26 May 1939, page 20: the Harbor and Port Day programme. 30 May 1939, page 7, “Vancouver Throngs Cross Inlet For Second Glimpse of Rulers”: the crowd of 75,000 to 100,000 on the North Shore. We read these Province pages. We quote short lines and do not reproduce the pages.
- The Vancouver Sun, 26 May 1939, front page, headline “Lions Gate Bridge ‘Open’ After Six Months of Use”: the “official” opening, the cavalcade “with all the official dignity of a slow march”, the clubhouse at Capilano, the certificate, “more than six months”, about $20,000 a month in tolls, and John Anderson as A.J.T. Taylor’s “confrere”. Continued on page 6, under “Like Lusty Child”: Taylor’s words “This bridge, like a lusty child has been born”. Later accounts shorten the line to “A lusty child has been born.”
- The Vancouver Daily Province, 27 May 1939, page 21, “High Tribute Paid Builders At Gate Bridge Ceremonies”: the cavalcade from the Stanley Park pavilion, “some seventy” guests at the Capilano Golf and Country Club, the certificate signed by P. L. Pratley of Monsarrat & Pratley, and the photograph of Allan Gentles presenting it to A.J.T. Taylor.
- The Vancouver Sun, 27 May 1939, page 2: the Lions Gate Bridge “closed from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.” on 29 May. Page 41: the map “The Royal Route in Vancouver” and the official itinerary.
- We read these Sun pages. We quote short lines and do not reproduce the pages.
- Engineering News-Record, 10 November 1938: open to traffic “this month”, dedication the next summer. Open to read on the Internet Archive.
- The Daily Colonist (Victoria), 7 October 1938, Canadian Press item datelined 6 October: the Board of Trade caravan of 80 cars on 5 October, “its first traffic”, and the public opening expected about 8 November. Open to read online.
- The Daily Colonist (Victoria), 30 May 1939, Canadian Press report on the royal visit: the route of 29 May. Open to read online.
- The Vancouver Sun, 30 May 1939, page 14, “Two Historic Plaques”: the two bronze tablets, unveiled on 29 May, “completed November 14th 1938” and “crossed this Lions’ Gate Bridge”. 31 May 1939, page 17: the royal party coming off the bridge.
- The Vancouver Sun, 30 May 1939, page 22: the parade over the Second Narrows Bridge, through North Vancouver and Taylor Way, to the north approach of the Lions Gate Bridge.
- The Vancouver Daily Province, 30 May 1939, page 2, “Farewell” (continued from page 1): the royal party crossing back from the North Shore by the First Narrows bridge to Stanley Park. We read these two pages.
- A.J.T. Taylor, 1st Narrows Bridge, a 16 mm colour film of the construction, 1937–38, City of Vancouver Archives: the opening date is on the last title card. The cards for 4 November, the waiting cars and the first ticket come about 39 minutes into the archives’ master copy. That the 4 November crossing was a rehearsal is our reading; we found no newspaper report of it.
- Lions Gate Bridge, Vancouver, Canada, a booklet of 1939, on the Internet Archive (archive.org/details/LionsGateBridge): the opening date is on pages 18 and 24, the franchise date on page 47, and Taylor’s partner, John Anderson, on page 8. The booklet has no imprint page. That it speaks for the company, and that the company “seems to have kept both dates”, is our reading.
Which date other sources use
- 12 November 1938: the BC Archives record of the construction film; the District of West Vancouver heritage page; North Shore News (2018); CBC News (12 November 2018); The Vancouver Sun, “This day in history: November 12, 1938” (2012).
- 14 November 1938: TranBC, “Happy Birthday Lions Gate Bridge!” (14 November 2012); The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Lions Gate Bridge”; the Vancouver Heritage Foundation, Places That Matter #63.
- 26 May 1939: Parks Canada backgrounder (2010); BC Magazine, “The man behind the bridge” (2014).
- 29 May 1939: MONOVA, “Building a Vancouver Icon”; The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Spotted a mistake? Tell us at [email protected]. We correct the page and note the date.