Gastown
Gastown was Vancouver's first downtown core. The town prospered as the site of a sawmill, seaport, and quickly became a general centre of trade and commerce on Burrard Inlet as well as a rough-and-rowdy resort for off-work loggers and fishermen as well as the crews and captains of many sailing ships.
In 1886, the town was incorporated as the City of Vancouver. It fell victim to the "Great Vancouver Fire" that same year, losing all but two of its buildings. The area was completely rebuilt and continued to thrive, finding new life as the centre of the city's wholesale produce distribution until the Great Depression in the 1930s and, until the instigation of Prohibition, the centre of the city's drinking life (there were 300 licensed establishments the twelve-block area of the former Granville, B.I.)
In the 1960s, citizens concerned with preserving Gastown's distinctive and historic architecture, which like the nearby Chinatown and Strathcona were scheduled to be demolished to build a major freeway into the city's downtown.