E-Books →Boom Times in Chilliwack Memories from the Post-war Years

Boom Times in Chilliwack celebrates a dynamic time in the city's past when it experienced unprecedented growth. After World War II, with surging population growth and a steadily increasing tax base, came major infrastructure projects such as a new library and firehall, courthouse, arena, hospital and civic centre. The Paramount Theatre installed its iconic neon sign downtown in the spring of 1949, and a drive-in theatre on the edge of town opened the next summer. Meanwhile, the city's restaurant options, retail sector, schools and sporting scene all grew significantly.
These cultural and physical shifts―including fast-food drive-ins, subdivisions and a burgeoning consumer culture―represent in microcosm changes that were happening in communities across North America, but with a special local flavour. Accompanied by a wealth of archival photos, Boom Times in Chilliwack chronicles the entertaining tales that come with rapid change, and captures the developments and the economic optimism of the 1950s and 1960s that laid the groundwork for the Chilliwack of today.