a road from there going into the mine, bm you couldn't get out that way. You could only go from the mine down to the railroad. That's the wav thcv brought all the gold out fi·om Bridge River, fr~m Pioneer and Bro.Jorne Mines in those days. There used to be 75-pound bars of gold come out ij1 a gunny sack in an open pickup u·uck. It was handled like a piece of lead and shoved in a boxcar on the PGE down to Vancouver. When we were living in Vancouver, my futher used to come out at weekends. He had his own boat and he used to tie up at the Shell Oil plant, which used ro be near loco on this side, about an hour's nm down !Tom Lake Buntzen to there, then he'd walk about a mile till he got to the old Hastings extension streetcar and then he'd come home by streetcar. They had a terrible fire up at Coquitlam and it nearly burnt the townsite out. They all had to leave everything and just get Out as quick as possible. It burnt all tl1at side hill. It was a forest fire, it got going and took this vvhole side of the hill . They had tO clear everyone out of the place. I forget what time it was, but it must have been sometime between 1910 and 1913 because mv mother went through it. · The gra,·cl was brought down fi·om glacial tiJI in the mountainside and brought down with hydraulic hoses and flumed down to the dam site where they built the earth retaining wall, the dam. There was a spillway which was kept open until tl1ey got the dam completed, then they blocked tl1e spillway off and let the lake fill up after that. The level of the lake was raised almost 100 feet fi·om the original level of the lake. It gave you a greater volume of water and it also gave you the height of
water to flow from there to Lake Buntzen so they could maintain a continuous flow into Lake Buntzen. There was a spillway there in case Lake Bumzen was ever shut down d1ey could still spill water down through the original Coquitlam River. A punchion road is where they take logs and lay them sideways, crossways over the creeks and soggy ground when they put gravel on top of that again, and you cou ld put logs the other way again or planks, then you cou ld ha,·e a road tO get across and get a wagon across. Horses and scrapers were used to moving gravel around once the flumes had brought the gravel down from the side of the mountain ·where they were hydrauJicking it witl1 a high pressure hose, then the horses and scrapers would ten move the gravel around on tl1e dam sire area. Thev used clav and all sorts of rhings to seal the dan1, then pur gravel on top then seal it again with more clay, tl1en put gravel on topthat's tl1c wav earth dams arc constructed - it's not just higgledy~pigglcdy. It's still a viable dam, it's survived earthquakes and all that sort ofd1ing. They had blacksmith shops for the horses, machine shops, a complete sawmill there dnt sawed all the lumber, I think it was steam operated, they were using conventional sawmill methods in usc at that rime. Buntzcn \Vas built to supply electricity to Vancouver, and Stave, it was supplying Wesm1inster. The trams were operated by the Western Power Company because they had their steam plant down on Main. That provided the initial electrical power for Vancouver. And when Stave Falls got going, that supplied Westminster because tl1e powcrlinc came straight down to Westminster.
Margaret Neelands Gueho Margaret Neelands Gueho had good reason to be close to the Vancouver Golf C lub. It was her husband Manny, who tended the greens there tor so many years. ·The golf club had its roots in a Nov. 22, 1910 meeting of the provisional B.C. Golf Club at the Terminal City Club in Vancouver. A $500 deposit had been made on the Austin farm lands in Coquitlam; tl1e fulJ cost was $60,000 in cash payments of $3,000 and $8,000, with the balance in six annual, equal installments. Equipment and horses wac bought. Because 70 acres ofW. R. Austin's Blue Mountain Ranch had already been cleared, nine holes were ready for play by Tune 24, 1911, when tl1c club was officially opened. A crew of Russians was engaged to clear land for the other nine holes some years later. They were soon discharged in favor of East Indians wlio felled trees six to eight feet in diameter with crosscut saws and double-bitted axes. Golfers in the early years trave!Jed from Vancouver on the Great Northern RaiJway. Then, when d1c Burnaby Lake interurban u·am line was built, East Indians wid1 horses and Democrat buggies were dispatched to
pick up tl1e golfers at the Golf Club Station in nearby Sapperton. The first club house was the old farm house; several have been built ~incc, at least two having been destroyed by fire. A unique feature of the carlv club houses was the dori11itory for golfers who'd missed the last tram back to Vancouver or New Westminster. Born May 5, 1904, Margaret Neclands }.tfa"lJa1'Ct Ncelattds. Gueho came to Coquitlam witl1 her family from Bumaby in 1910. Her futher, William Neelands, who was elected a Coquitlan1 councillor ( 1917-18, 191922, 1924-26 ) retired ro a life of casual furming, and built a large home for his tamily in Burquitlam. Her sister, Ruth, was once a municipal employee, back in the days when the municipal offices were 135