Columbia Street is the main street in the downtown neighbourhood of

New Westminster New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the cap ...

, British Columbia. It runs parallel to the

Fraser River The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ...

, emerging from Stewardson Way in the southwest portion of New Westminster, travelling through Downtown New Westminster and Sapperton, before crossing the

Brunette River The Brunette River runs through East Burnaby, New Westminster and Coquitlam, flowing out of Burnaby Lake and to the Fraser River. It is the final outflow of the Central Valley Watershed, which consists of most streams between the Ulksen and Bu ...

and becoming North Road. The section of the street northeast of McBride Boulevard is called East Columbia Street for

numbering There are many different numbering schemes for assigning nominal numbers to entities. These generally require an agreed set of rules, or a central coordinator. The schemes can be considered to be examples of a primary key In the relational model ...

purposes. The downtown portion of the street is a historic commercial area, and has been nicknamed the Miracle Mile and the Golden Mile. The 600 and 700 blocks of Columbia Street are home to a large number of bridal stores and galleries, and are occasionally referred to as the ''Bridal Capital of British Columbia'' or ''Wedding Row''. The eastern portion of Columbia Street in Sapperton passes the former site of the

British Columbia Penitentiary The British Columbia Penitentiary (BC Penitentiary, commonly referred to as the BC Pen and the Pen) was a federal maximum security prison located in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. The BC Penitentiary operated for 102 years, from 1878 ...

, the Sapperton Brewery District, and the

Royal Columbian Hospital Royal Columbian Hospital (RCH) is among the oldest hospitals in British Columbia and one of the busiest in the Fraser Health, Fraser Health Authority. It is located in New Westminster overlooking the Fraser River and is the only hospital in the L ...

History

Columbia Street started to emerge as a transportation corridor and townsite in the 1850s as the city of New Westminster was being developed. It was initially referred to as Richards Street after

George Henry Richards Sir George Henry Richards (13 January 182014 November 1896) was Hydrographer of the Royal Navy from 1863 to 1874. Biography Richards was born in Antony, Cornwall, the son of Captain G. S. Richards, and joined the Royal Navy in 1832. His eld ...

, a British hydrographer who surveyed the Fraser River. As the street was lengthened and improved during the 1860s, it was named Columbia Street after the Columbia Detachment of the Royal Engineers, who were responsible for constructing the early British settlements in British Columbia. The street and its buildings were almost entirely destroyed during New Westminster's great fire of 1898, and had to be rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th century. Despite the setback, the area quickly emerged as New Westminster's main commercial and business district. The famous ''

Wait for Me, Daddy ''Wait for Me, Daddy'' is a photo taken by Claude P. Dettloff on October 1, 1940, of The British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught's Own) (RCAC), the British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught's Own Rifles) marching down Eighth Street at t ...

'' photograph was taken at the corner of Columbia Street and the perpendicular 8th Street, although the photograph does not capture any length of Columbia Street. New Westminster's first city hall was located at the corner of Columbia Street and 6th Street, prior to its relocation in the 1950s. 502 Columbia Street was the home of an

Eaton's The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's g ...

until 1977 and was an Army & Navy Store from 1978 until the company's dissolution in 2020.

Major intersections

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Columbia Street Roads in British Columbia Transport in New Westminster Downtown New Westminster 19th-century establishments in British Columbia