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1956 -- Sechelt's first Municipal Hall

This early 20th-century building served many purposes before becoming Sechelt's first Municipal Hall.

It began as accommodation for transient workers Ð hence the nickname 'Flea Pit' and was located behind Sechelt's second hotel on the east side of the wharf. Later it was spruced up and used as a home for the hotel's Chinese cooks and, in the 1930s, for its women staff. After the hotel burned down in 1936 it was moved to face Wharf Avenue at the Boulevard junction where it served as Sechelt's telephone and telegraph office. When the telephone office moved in 1948 the Bank of Montreal took it over until 1955 when it moved to Cowrie Street. The land the empty building stood on was owned by an oil company and for the cost of moving the building the Sechelt Council could have it for a municipal hall (which it was until 1966) when a new hall was built. The building moved again to the Sechelt Indian Band lands where it became John Petula's Peninsula Drive-In Restaurant. It burned down in 1975.

The buildings in the background are, from left to right, two B.C. Government Forestry Buildings on the north-east corner and the Home gas station on the south-east corner of Wharf Avenue and Dolphin Street. To the right of the moving building is the former 'Forestry Cottage' occupied by forest rangers and later by Mr. and Mrs. Newcombe.

Photograph probably by a local newspaper photographer