Thursday, June 22, 2006

Nanaimo 1892 and Today

Nanaimo 1892 - Population less than 5000, Had a shoe factory, tannery, cigar factory, 5 breweries, 2 soda water bottlers, a foundry, carriage builder, a steam carriage works, door and window factory, and 2 bakeries. All of these were local industries owned by Nanaimo residents. The 1892 foundry, which operated in one guise or another until the 1980's was by the early 1900's, building locomotives for logging railways!

Nanaimo 2006 - population 76,000. Has no shoe factory, no tannery, no cigar factory, no breweries, no soda water bottlers, no foundry, but it does have half a dozen bakeries. All the missing industries products are imported from afar and/or are produced by foreign multinational corporations.

4 Comments:

Blogger Werner said...

Many towns are probably like this. What I remember about this place in the 50s and 60s were businesses which seemed to be established for decades at a time ... not six months and bankruptcy. Today even "going concerns" are always moving around. The east end of this town of 200,000 is now a rats'nest of big box atores very difficult to navigate especially for older people.

7:53 PM  
Blogger Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Nowadays the industrious of Nanaimo are busy producing the world's best pot. Beats cigars!

8:21 PM  
Blogger Kevin Carson said...

Until WWII, just about every moderate-sized town had a brewery, and every town of any size at all had at least one cannery. It's especially sad to see the crap the mass market beer companies are churning out--I think the hops content has gone down by at least a third since the '50s. But it's great to see the market share that microbreweries are picking up.

12:21 AM  
Blogger Kevin Carson said...

And I'll have you know, mr. beer n. hockey, that the world's best pot is grown in Arkansas.

12:22 AM  

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