August 7th, 1971 — The Gastown Riot, also known as “The Battle of Maple Tree Square”, happened 43 years ago today. Glenn Baglo of the Vancouver Sun was one of the photographers assigned to cover the event and although none of the pictures he took that evening won awards the one above was probably the best of his career and that’s saying something because Glenn took a lot of great photographs including four that won national newspaper awards. When I say the picture above I mean the image that is on the front of the print above which was salvaged from a pile of garbage the day Pacific Press moved downtown from their old building at 6th and Granville.
There’s a lot to tell from the back of this picture. It ran 6 columns on the front page of the Sun’s first edition but must have been removed for the second (home) edition because it was remade 6 columns for the front page of the buff the name given to the final edition of The Sun sold only on the streets and in stores. Or, it could have received some retouching and then resent to engraving for the final edition.
At some point the picture ran 44ems, which I think is about 7 inches, on page 6 of the first edition. This could have been a follow story on October 9th. It also ran two columns on the letters page Thursday probably August 12th, 1971.
The picture was filed, obviously, under “Gastown Riot”, in the oversize file because the print is 11×14 inches, but also under horses.
What’s interesting about all the above is that with digital photography all this history is lost, especially Glen’s pencil written caption scribbled on the back just before he sent his prints out to the photo editor.
If you want to see the front of the picture click HERE.
The Gastown Riots are commemorated in a two-story-high photo mural called Abbott & Cordova by local artist Stan Douglas, installed in the atrium of the redeveloped Woodward’s Complex.