The City’s History

Port Moody’s history, and roots as the city it is today, takes us back to the late 19th century. Named after Richard Clement Moody, the first Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, it was in 1874 that the original Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) realized that building their rail line on the north side of the Fraser River was the easiest place to build. And with the tidewater farther east along this route was Port Moody. The first shipment of rails arrived by ship from Britain in 1883, and the line was finished in 1884. Experiencing a boom of businesses being opened with the railway opened, including several blacksmith, shoemakers, real estate agent, two hotels and a number of boarding houses, a newspaper and a telephone connection with New Westminster.

Unfortunately, the boom from the railway didn’t last. The city’s first paper, the Port Moody Gazette, reported in the summer of 1884 that CPR was planning to continue the line to English Bay, even though the area was not suitable for the line’s terminus station. While the local presented a petition to the governor-general, and the federal government recognized Port Moody as the transcontinental terminus, they essentially replied saying that CPR had the business acumen to proceed according to their own plans. CPR General Manager W.C. Van Horne wanted the profits from land development to be that which funded his railway, and he signed a secret deal with the provincial government in 1886 to do just that. To the jubilation of citizens, most of those from Vancouver, the first transcontinental train arrived in Port Moody on July 4, 1886, one minute late of its scheduled arrival time, having crossed Canada for 19 hours and five days.

Port Moody was incorporated as a city on March 7, 1913, with the owner of a local sawmill, P.D. Roe, being elected as it’s first mayor on April 3rd. By the mid 1930s, it was clear there was an unspoken rivalry between Vancouver and Port Moody, as Port Moody believed that it should be the terminus station, even though Vancouver by then had three times its population. Railway continued to be a big part of the city as lines expanded to Vancouver and carried cargo through its community into the 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond. A museum dedicated to the history of the railway is now a staple of the community, and it sits housed in the original Port Moody Station near Rocky Point Park on Murray Street. After the railway ceased to become the city’s focal point, a deep-sea bulk loading terminal, two petrochemical distribution operations, a large wood products manufacturer, and a thermal electric generating station became the main industries.

The nearby Village of Anmore, which consisted of 800 residents on the northeast bank of Indian Arm, decided that they would rather be on their own than become a part of the city of Port Moody. And so the first meeting of the Village of Anmore was held on December 7th, 1987. At its creation, Anmore was 798 hectares (approx. 2,000 acres), whereas now it’s 2,873 hectares (approx. 7,000 acres) and sporting a population of nearly 2,000.