LYNN VALLEY REAL ESTATE

The Lynn Valley General Store taken c 1908. Courtesy of the North Vancouver Museum & Archives. 

There are two possible namesakes for the beautiful little area of Lynn Valley. Some believe it was named after Tom Lynn who lived on the North Shore in the 1870s and owned a farm in the area we now know as Lynn Valley. Tom Lynn became famous for bringing milk and fresh produce by rowboat to Gastown. Others believe that Lynn Valley was named after John Linn, a member of the Moody’s Royal Engineers who came to the region in 1859. Although John Linn got there first, many believe that the farmer gave his name to Lynn Valley. In the 1890s Lynn Valley was a long thin logging road, called a cordory road where the deforestation of the area occurred and the logs would be taken down to the port in Lonsdale to be shipped off around the world to make ships. After the The Great War in 1918 Lynn Valley was a place where veterans returning from the war were granted homes at extremely affordable rates. By 1906 Lynn Valley was the second largest settlement in North Vancouver second only to Moodyville. The streetcars which ran from Lonsdale were extended into the Lynn Valley in 1912. In the early 20th Century Lynn Valley was commonly referred to as ‘Shaketown’ because of its large collection of cedar-shake buildings (wooden log cabin structures). Most of the development we know today in Lynn Valley occurred in the 1950s through to the late 1970s. There are more schools in Lynn Valley than in any other part of North Vancouver. This reflects the young family atmosphere and the large numbers of single family homes in the area. Most of the lots in Lynn Valley are fairly ‘large’ with many traditional family homes on those sites. It is not uncommon to find many different lot sizes within one single block area. There are quite a number of townhouse complexes and apartments in Lynn Valley and there has been quite a lot of building happening in the heart of Lynn Valley, The Lynn Valley Centre.