Boom Times in Chilliwack: Memories from the Post-war Years

What began as a steamboat landing on the Fraser River, in the traditional territory of the Stó:lō Nation, became a pioneer settlement in the 1860s. Today Chilliwack is a thriving agricultural hub with a population in excess of 100,000. The more the city grows so too does local interest in its history, coupled with a move to preserve what is left of the community’s past and its heritage.

Boom Times in Chilliwack celebrates a dynamic time in the city’s past when it experienced unprecedented growth. After World War II, with surging population growth and a steadily increasing tax base, came major infrastructure projects such as a new library and firehall, courthouse, arena, hospital and civic centre. The Paramount Theatre installed its iconic neon sign downtown in the spring of 1949, and a drive-in theatre on the edge of town opened the next summer. Meanwhile, the city’s restaurant options, retail sector, schools and sporting scene all grew significantly.

These cultural and physical shifts—including fast-food drive-ins, subdivisions and a burgeoning consumer culture—represent in microcosm changes that were happening in communities across North America, but with a special local flavour. Accompanied by a wealth of archival photos, Boom Times in Chilliwack chronicles the entertaining tales that come with rapid change, and captures the developments and the economic optimism of the 1950s and 1960s that laid the groundwork for the Chilliwack of today.