Pitt Meadows

Pitt Meadows is a city in southwestern British Columbia, Canada and a member municipality in Metro Vancouver. Incorporated in 1914, it has a land area of 85.38 square kilometres (32.97 sq mi) and a population of 18,573 (as of 2016).[2]

Indigenous Peoples resided in the Pitt Meadows area approximately 1000 years ago. James McMillan explored the area in 1874. Europeans started a settlement known as Bonson’s Landing in the area in the 1870s. Early settlers were mostly Anglo-Saxon until after 1910.[3] The municipality takes its name from the Pitt River and Pitt Lake. The word “Pitt” is of Dutch origin from the term “pitt polder” meaning converted wetlands and is related to the Dutch dyke building company and Dutch farming community of this area in the mid-1900s.[4] The river, the lake and the settlement were apparently named for British prime minister William Pitt the Younger.[5]:208 The Municipality of Maple Ridge, which included the Pitt Meadows area, was incorporated in 1874. In 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway was constructed through Pitt Meadows to Port Moody, British Columbia.

Pitt Meadows Museum
The Pitt Meadows General Store, which was constructed in 1886, was moved to its current location in 1908. A garden has existed since the early years of development on the Site.[6] The store, which contained the community’s first Post Office and the first telephone, has been the home of the Pitt Meadows Museum and Archives since June 1998.[7]

In 1892, residents of the Pitt Meadows area petitioned for their removal from the District of Maple Ridge. In 1893, the first dyking district was organized. The major Fraser River Flood event flooded many acres of land in the spring of 1894.[3]