South Hill will be 100 years old in 2010.

100 years ago Fraser Street was a dirt road with wooden sidewalks. A streetcar track ran down the middle of the road to a small village on the south slope. In March 1910, two businessmen opened their stores in a brand-new two-storey building, in the corner where Shoppers Drugmart is today. One of the new stores was a hardware store and the other sold groceries. There was also a hardware and furniture store closer to 47th Avenue or Miles Road as it was then called. The stores served the incorporated District of South Vancouver, which in those times was still mainly agricultural land.

Fraser Street was originally called North Arm Road as it led towards the north arm of the Fraser River. 49th Avenue was called Ferris Road and 41st Avenue Wilson Road. The old street names came from prominent South Vancouver residents.

By 1911, the population of South Vancouver had reached approximately 35,000. That is when real estate started booming and land that had been bought for a dollar an acre was being subdivided and sold for $5,000 a lot in the business section, which covered the present day BIA (Business Improvement Area).

South Vancouver amalgamated with the City of Vancouver in 1929. In the late 1940’s the agricultural land of the area was used to house veterans returning from WWII. As families moved to the area, there was need for new schools and community centres. John Oliver Secondary School was built in 1950 in Wilson Park, the site of an old South Vancouver farm.

While the majority of the early residents in the area were of European descent, South Vancouver was also home to immigrants from India and China. In other words, South Hill was multi-cultural already then.