Browsing “Illustrated Vancouver Series”

I believe this post solves one of the great mysteries I’ve uncovered since starting Illustrated Vancouver. For the past year, I’ve been trying to track down the whereabouts of the S.P. Judge watercolours that once hung in the Union Steamship boardroom. Ironically, they may have been under my nose the entire time!

I first learned of these paintings from Gerald Rushton’s book Whistle Up the Inlet, the Union Steamship Story. In the final few pages of the book, he briefly mentions:

Captain Terry later sent me the water colour paintings of the early Union fleet done by S. P. Judge of the Vancouver Art School in 1905. They had hung in the board room and in my office, and it was a gesture I appreciated.

I’ve mentioned before that Gerald Rushton wrote the book on Union Steamship twice; actually, he may have written three or four, if you include this booklet from 1923, as well as the Personality Ships of British Columbia which contains his compact history of the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia.

I tried contacting his family to see if they recalled whether these paintings were handed down to someone, as I firmly believed these were significant enough to belong in one of our local museums. After speaking with Gerald Rushton’s grandson, he did recall some paintings, but he seemed to think they were taken to a Vancouver art dealer. That’s where the trail went cold for a while…until I made a return trip to the Maritime Museum!

There in front of me, hanging in their permanent collection, were two watercolours by S.P. Judge, one featuring the Union Steamship vessel the Capilano, and another featuring the Coquitlam (items 1991.188 and 1991.189). In fact, I had asked the museum months previously if they knew the whereabouts of these Union Steamship watercolours, but since they aren’t actually labelled “Union Steamship”, they were unaware of their existence. It was a big thrill to suddenly recognize what I had been looking for after nearly a year of searching! Clearly I should have been spending more time at the Maritime Museum!

The Union Steamship Capilano by S.P. Judge, 1905

I love the fact that doing art history research can sometimes make some fairly significant discoveries. Take for example, this mis-attributed Picasso that was donated by Raymond Leowy to a museum in Indiana which was discovered because a researcher was simply looking for the word “gemmaux”. …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Last week I introduced United Distillers Ltd. of Vancouver. This week, it’s time for a collection of marketing materials, starting with this newspaper advertisement from The Cariboo Observer, December 7, 1940, featuring a little bit of London in Vancouver. This is timed perfectly, as we pass the Olympic torch from one host city to another this week:

So out we drove to Marpole, and into the UDL plant. We passed through a maze of buildings and into the Gin Distillery. A smiling gentleman made us welcome. “Meet Mr. Strange,” said Tom.

The advertisement could only be improved had they stated instead, “Meet Mr. Bean.” The ad goes on to prove how British expertise combined with Vancouver’s famous mountain water produce an unbeatable product. The ad features Silver Fizz Dry Gin, Mistletoe Dry Gin, and Silver Slipper Dry Gin. Here is the ad in its entirety:

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Architectural drawing by the firm Gardiner and Mercer of the Marpole office and plant of United Distillers Limited (Vancouver Archives Item : CVA 586-1957)

This is the remarkable story of UDL, Vancouver; a once mighty distiller of spirits that has nearly completely vanished from the visual history of our city. I haven’t yet determined the precise date that United Distillers Limited was established in Vancouver, but according to Wrigley’s BC Telephone directory, United Distillers Ltd. first appeared at 8900 Shaughnessy Street in 1927. This is significant, as it falls directly in the middle of American prohibition (1920-1933). United Distillers Ltd. of Vancouver was a publicly traded company, but it also had American roots. The early beginnings of UDL in America are equally elusive to track down, but it seems to me that Hyman Harvey Klein was the successful liquor dealer who founded UDL in Baltimore some time prior to American prohibition.

United Distillers Limited was located at the foot of Marpole, at 8900 Shaughnessy Street, not far from Oak Street and SW Marine Drive. The plant faced the Fraser River, where you can see ships at dock in the background of both illustrations, a particularly strategic shipping location. This leads us to our first anecdote of infamy.

Engraving of the United Distillers Limited plant (Vancouver Archives Item : CVA 99-2741)

After the alcohol reserves dried up in the USA in 1921, there was huge opportunity for rum-runners and bootleggers to fill that void by bringing alcohol in from Canada. In fact, the practice was fairly well organized and it was practically considered a ‘respectable trade’ during the 1920s, until exporting liquor to the United States became illegal in 1930. In the book The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States, Humbert S. Nelli explains:

In 1930 the Canadian Parliament passed a law making it illegal to export liquor to the United States or to any country that had adopted prohibition. This law put a severe crimp in the smuggling business but did not end it. Instead of shipping booze directly to the United States, Canadian companies routed it to a Caribbean port and then to the United States. Smugglers, of course, still carried liquor across the Canadian-American border.

The Internal Revenue Service determined in investigations conducted in 1935 that Canadian distilleries figured prominently in the liquor-smuggling business; not only had the distilleries been “manufacturing liquors of a type designed only for the American trade” but also they “had established depots at smuggling bases on the French islands of St. Pierre et Miquelon, in the Bahamas, in British Honduras, at Ensenada, Mexico, at Papeiti, Tahiti, at Vancouver, British Columbia, and at other points … [and] thereby almost completely encircled the United States with liquor smuggling depots.” The investigations resulted in a compromise arrangement with the Treasury Department whereby four Canadian concerns—Distillers Corporation-Seagrams, Ltd.; Hiram Walker-Gooderham and Worts, Ltd.; Canadian Industrial Alcohol, Ltd.; and United Distillers, Ltd.—agreed to pay a $3 million fine. This was a small penalty compared with the hundreds of millions of dollars in profits the companies had made by exploiting the American market during prohibition years.

And so, I imagine that dock along the Fraser River was the starting point for many thousands of cases of alcohol that would mysteriously make their way to dry bars all across the USA. The slap on the wrist of a $3 million dollar fine split between 4 large distilleries must have seemed like the cost of doing business.

But this was not the only time the company would attract the attention of American authorities. Around the time of WWII, when alcohol was once again a scare commodity, profits soared at UDL, raising the interest of the IRS. The Financial Post sets the stage in this article from April 5, 1952. The IRS was investigating the dealings between UDL in Vancouver and the man behind the UDL empire in Baltimore, Hyman Harvey Klein, who was now living in Los Angeles. The IRS claimed millions in unpaid taxes. This Financial Post article gives a good deal of background information about the Canadian operations, stating:

UDL is a holding company for a group of subsidiaries including United Distillers Ltd. (distillery at Vancouver, grape spirits at Grimsby) Princeton Brewing Co., John Dunbar & Co. of London, England, Duncan Harwood & Co., and John Adams & Co. Ltd. In 1949 UDL bought and later renovated Harrison Hot Springs Hotel.

The three directors at United Distillers Ltd. in Vancouver were also under scrutiny in the case. These three men were Isidore Joseph “Hicky” Klein (brother-in-law to Hyman Harvey Klein; I.J. Klein died 1955), Albert L. (big Al) McLennan (born in New Westminster in 1885 or 86, he died in 1968), and Mr. George William Norgan (born July 11, 1885 in Palmerston, Ontario). The article describes the men:

I. J. Klein is described as a man who stays in the background, makes no social, sporting, or entertaining splash. McLennan, though hardly an ardent socialite, is president of the B.C. Turf & Country Club. Norgan has a fine residence in Western Vancouver. It was originally built for A. J. Taylor, one of the men originally responsible for attracting the Guinness money to Vancouver. The house was later bought by Garfield Weston. Norgan also owns the Portland (Oregon Beavers) baseball team and is a sponsor of golf tournaments, a game at which he is a topnotcher.

In 1954, nine men were indicted in what was said to be the largest attempted income tax evasion case in the history of the Internal Revenue Service. H. H. Klein and 2 lawyers were convicted, fined, and sentenced to prison time (the fines totaled $18,000). Klein’s law firm reminisces about the case in this memoir. H. H. Klein appealed to the Supreme Court in the US but the court refused his appeal. The three Canadian UDL directors were not charged in the case.

I don’t quite know how to end this story because I don’t know what became of the United Distillers Limited Vancouver operations. Were they bought out by the Kennedys or the Bronfmans or did they run the operation into the ground? The end of UDL seems just as ambiguous as the beginning. There’s not much left to remember UDL in Vancouver today. I did find this Liquor Control Board of British Columbia Price List from March 1, 1938 which lists many of their products, priced by the case. You can occasionally find empty prohibition bottles for sale on eBay or at flea markets across the USA. Finding bottles with actual labels is a much more challenging task, but next week I’ll feature some of the advertising depicting a few of their products.

New warehouses and industries are now located on the Marpole site, including the Raincoast Books warehouse which opened in 1999 at 9050 Shaughnessy Street. Also created in 1999 is a relatively new City of Vancouver park at the foot of Shaughnessy Street on the edge of the Fraser River. The Shaughnessy Street park is one of 10 designated sites which feature beach volleyball courts. I don’t believe there is a plaque in the park which will tell you these tales from prohibition days and beyond, so you may now consider yourself informed!

Interior label design for Booth’s Bouquet Cigars

Last week I featured a cigar label from New Westminster on Illustrated Vancouver and I wound up outlining the history of cigars in New West. This week, Vancouver takes centre stage with Booth’s Bouquet, a cigar box label printed by Rolph & Clark, Toronto. Who manufactured the cigars and where they were made is yet to be determined, but in the mean time, let’s look closer at the printer of this cigar box label. Later known as Rolph-Clark-Stone Ltd, this firm was one of the oldest lithography, printing, and packaging firms in Canada, established back in 1849. Folks over at TorontoIsAwesome.com, take note! From the book Industrial Canada: Volume 68, Issues 1-6 on Google Books:

The story of Rolph-Clark-Stone began in London, England, in a small engraving shop from which an ambitious apprentice, Joseph Thomas Rolph, seeing broad opportunities in British North America, set out for Toronto, capital of Upper Canada, on May 2, 1857. During the ensuing decade, he gained a reputation there as a craftsman and man of principle. In the year of Confederation he purchased the one-room engraving shop of Ellis & Co. which in 1849 had been established at 11 King Street West.

According to Art and Work: A Social History of Labour in the Canadian Graphic Arts by Angela E. Davis, Rolph purchased Ellis & Company for £2,000 in December, 1867.

We can deduce the approximate age of this painting with a number of indicators. The City of Vancouver’s new coat of arms was first designed by James Blomfield in 1901; the Dominion Building appearing on the left was built in 1910; the Vancouver Block on the right was built in 1916 correction: 1912. In 1917, Rolph & Clark changed it’s name to Rolph, Clark, Stone, Ltd. Thus, I think it’s safe to estimate this cigar box dates from around 1912 to 1916; incidentally, 1916 also happens to be the same year that Joseph Thomas Rolph passed away.

As for the company that produced the cigars, I found but one slim lead; the book Papermakers: the Blandin Paper Company and Grand Rapids, Minnesota mentioned George Booth’s Cigars, including Pokegama Bouquet. Pokegama is the name of a lake in Minnesota (a big fishing destination) as well as the name of a different lake nearby in Wisconsin. From the city of Superior, Wisconsin’s website, “The word ‘Pokegama’ (pronounced po-kay-gehmeh) is of Chippewa extraction, and means ‘bay or lake in or at one side of a river.’” I have a hunch that Mr. George Booth may have been an entrepreneurial cigar maker who was branding his products after various tourist destinations. I tried asking the Grand Rapids, MN Library for help with this theory, but I have not yet received a reply.

There may be one more clue buried in the fine print at the bottom left of the label; if the right side states “Rolph & Clark, Toronto”, what the left side states has not yet been resolved. If we have any cigar historians or aficionados in our midst who can shed some light on the subject, feel free to add a comment below.Granted we may never discover who actually drew this piece of vintage commercial artwork, but at least we now know a little more about the label and the company that printed it.

You’re probably wondering where I found a nearly 100 year old cigar box. Good question. The fact is, this cigar box illustration is listed for sale on eBay from the seller thekennelclub for $400 USD. A smaller version of the graphic (below) is priced at $200 USD. But don’t tell your grandpa; he might just get wound up and say, “Back when I was your age, $200 could have bought you dinner, a show at the Orpheum, AND a convertible!”

UPDATE! I just heard back from the seller, and the text on the left simply says “Registered”, so alas, still no artist credit.

Exterior cigar label design, via eBay

Detail of the cover design by Steve LeCouilliard for “The Giants of Main Street”

Pow! Wham! Biff! Monsters! Dragons! Giants! Announcing the latest anthology from Cloudscape Comics. The Giants of Main Street is a 150 page collection of fantasy stories set in an urban environment, from ancient civilizations to modern metropolises which might or might not resemble our own dear city. This project started out as an Indie-Go-Go campaign, and thanks to the crowdsourced support, the Cloudscape crew has once again raised the necessary funds to finance the printing of the book. This is the sixth anthology Cloudscape has produced, having released one every year for the past five years; a seventh book is already in the planning stage.

The Giants of Main Street features work from 25 local artists and writers including Edison Yan (Scribblenauts), John Christmas (Spectre of Sound), Rebecca Dart (Rabbithead, Battle Kittens), Colin Upton (Diabetes Funnies), Steve LeCouilliard (Much the Miller’s Son), and Jonathon Dalton (Lords of Death and Life).

Earlier this month, the first copies of the book were sent out to those who supported the Indie-Go-Go campaign. The rest of you may have to wait a bit longer, but soon this title will be available in ebook and printed book format from the Cloudcape Comics online store; a Vancouver book launch event is also scheduled for next month. To find out more about their book launch plans and future events, follow them on Facebook, Tumblr, & Twitter. Until then, please enjoy this sketch of a “Giant of False Creek” by Kate Ebensteiner.