Vancouver British Columbia - Many of Vancouver's streets bear the names of old Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) officials, including Lauchlan Hamilton, Henry Cambie, Henry Beatty, Harry Abbott, Richard Angus, Edmund Osler, Wilmot Matthews, and Augustus Nanton.
 
Some neighbourhoods are also named after CP bigwigs. Shaughnessy was named after Thomas Shaughnessy, the president of the railway when the blue blood enclave was built.
 
Strathcona is named for Lord Strathcona (Donald Smith), co-founder of the railway.
 
The third neighbourhood named for a CP executive is Marpole, after Richard Marpole, who also had a street named after him.
 
Unlike Shaughnessy and Lord Strathcona, Marpole actually lived in Vancouver, where he ran the B.C. operations of CP for two decades.
 
When he died on 8 Jun 1920 the local papers ran his obituary on the front page.
 
Marpole came to B.C. in March, 1886, when he was named the superintendent of construction and operations of CP's Pacific division.
 
He had held a similar position in the Lake Superior division, which meant he was in charge when the first CP train from Montreal reached Winnipeg on 20 May 1885.
 
The first train to Winnipeg carried troops from the Montreal Garrison Artillery who were on their way to fight against the Metis in the Riel Rebellion.
 
After he moved west, Marpole oversaw the first train from Montreal to reach Port Moody on 4 Jul 1886 and Vancouver on 23 May 1887.
 
In 1897 Marpole was named general superintendent of CP's Pacific division, and in 1907 he became the railway's general executive assistant for B.C.
 
He was also a vice-president of the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway (E&N) on Vancouver Island, and travelled around the province in his own private railway car, the "Nanoose".
 
Marpole was born on 8 Oct 1850 in Montgomeryshire, Wales.
 
He started working for railways in Britain when he was 18.
 
When he was 25 he immigrated to Canada, where he worked for the Northern Railway.
 
In 1881 he started working with CP as a contractor, and a year later joined the company.
 
He was regarded as a very skilled manager.
 
When Marpole died CP's D.C. Coleman told The Vancouver Sun "during the early days of operation through the mountains, the railway was faced with many difficulties on account of slides and washouts, and Mr. Marpole, with his intrepidity, resourcefulness, genius for leadership, and great powers of physical endurance, was an invaluable asset to the Canadian Pacific."
 
It sounds like Marpole was a strong guy.
 
On 14 Sep 1908 the Vancouver World reported that Marpole and some CP officials went for a tour of Shaughnessy in a car and had "an unpleasant experience."
 
The car couldn't make it up a hill, and the chauffeur "reversed the machine in order to change the gear."
 
Unfortunately "the machine started to glide down the hill with the pace rapidly increasing."
 
The chauffeur turned the car into a bank and it started to tip over.
 
Marpole leapt out of the car "and in true Herculean style threw his weight against the tipping car and succeeded in preventing the impending upset."
 
He may have conquered the car, but he wasn't as lucky with the feisty newspaper editor John Houston.
 
In 1896 he went to Houston's office in Nelson to complain about Houston's anti-CP editorials, and Houston bonked him over the head with a ruler.
 
When Marpole fought back, Houston bit Marpole's hand.
 
His head wound required four stitches.
 
Marpole was married twice.
 
You can find his second marriage certificate online, and on the line "condition" someone wrote "widower," crossed it out, then wrote "divorced."
 
He had three kids with his first wife.
 
Sadly his son Dalton died in a fire at his ranch in Nicola in 1908, another son, Clarence, died in 1918 after returning home "invalided" from the First World War.
 
Marpole's first Vancouver house was at 801 West Hastings, at the northwest corner with Howe.
 
He moved to a Shaughnessy mansion at the corner of Angus Drive and Marpole Street in 1910.
 
He was in poor health for a few years before his death and spent some time in California, but returned to Vancouver and died in the Hotel Vancouver annex.
 
Marpole district was originally known as Eburne, after a postal station.
 
But there was another Eburne post office on Sea Island in Richmond, so in April, 1916, the Eburne Residents Association started a petition to change the name to Marpole.
 
It became official on 1 Jun 1916.
 
John Mackie.