Recently my girlfriend and I were walking in downtown Vancouver by the Post Office when we came across something unusual at the corner of Daniels Street and West 13th Street. On the northwest corner of the intersection, we found a cement block stamped with “Elwood Wiles 1913”. Both my girlfriend and I were instantly intrigued but also stumped by this mystery. Could this be the gravestone of some past resident of Vancouver or a disgruntled employee of the Post Office? Not at all.
Elwood Wiles was born in Canada on August 4, 1874. In 1886 he moved to Portland when he was twelve years old. In the early 1900’s, Portland was a young, growing city experiencing a major building boom. Wiles saw this as an opportunity. With new streets and neighborhoods being built, he started a concrete sidewalk business. He built much of the sidewalks in Portland’s Eastside, but he also built sidewalks and curbs all over Vancouver during this time as well.
Back then it was popular to contractors to leave their mark by their work. For cement sidewalk contractors this usually meant stamping their name and year into the cement.