Letter: Invest in temporary housing By Peter Fels, Vancouver
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Thanks for Martin Middlewood’s story about the Vancouver Housing Authority’s construction of housing during World War II to accommodate people who came to Vancouver to work in the shipyards (“Images From the Attic: Clark County History,” The Columbian, Dec. 27). It reminds me of what San Francisco authorities did after the 1906 earthquake, when thousands of tents were erected in city parks and thousands more “earthquake shacks” were built by union carpenters and made available for displaced citizens to live in temporarily and own at the end of paying two years’ modest rent: www.nps.gov/prsf/learn/historyculture/1906-earthquake-relief-efforts-living-accommodations.htm.
Clark County History: Kaiser Shipyards
A Tale of Six Cities By Martin Middlewood, for The Columbian
Published: December 27, 2020, 6:00am
Share: Employment at the Kaiser Shipyards brought 45,000 workers and their families to Vancouver right after World War II started, and they needed housing. Suddenly villages sprung up forming a ring around middle-class Vancouver. This 1942 photo taken on the new communities opening day shows the areas offering temporary homes for shipyard workers and their families: McLaughlin Heights, Fruit Valley, Ogden Meadows, Bagley Downs, Burton Homes and Harney Hill. (Contributed by Clark County History Museum)
Once World War II broke out, the Kaiser Shipyards worker recruitment ballooned Vancouver’s population. Abruptly, a town of 18,000 faced an influx of 45,000 more. Stunned by a population spike of two-and-a-half times its own, the city turned to planning.
Clark County History: First Chinese residents By Martin Middlewood, for The Columbian
Published: December 20, 2020, 6:05am
Share: Chin Wing was the Cantonese cook for Major General Thomas M. Anderson, commandant of Vancouver Barracks 1886-1898. His cook s photo was taken about 1890 and is one of the earliest photos of a Chinese person living in Clark County. (Contributed by Clark County Historical Museum)
When the photographer snapped this studio photo of Chin Wing in 1890, Washington had been a state just one year, and the Chinese population reached 3,260. Twenty years earlier, the census found 234 Chinese in the Washington Territory, and by 1880, the number reached 3,186.