Elida Peers | Contributed
It doesn’t take long for things to change in a vibrant business community. We believe this view of Sooke’s central business area, photographed by Joe Titus while on a courtesy helicopter tour provided by Rick Monnington, was taken in 1997.
There’s a little bit of red roof at the left, which is Jim Mitchell’s building (6631 Sooke Rd.), and right next to it is Brownsey Boulevard, where mobile homes used to stand.
After incorporation, Sooke embarked on a heightened period of development. One you see every day, the spot between the red roof and Coast Capital Credit Union and Village Food Market parking lot is where you find the roundabout nowadays.
MORE HISTORY: Wadams Way paved the way for new street in Sooke
Bruce Logan and Jerry Liedtke opened Village Food Markets in 1995, a move across the street from where they, together with Chris Craig, had opened their first supermarket when they established at Stan Eakin’s Evergreen Shopping Mall in 1978.
Townsend Road meets Sooke Road close to the centre of this photo, where Fred and Ginette Mui at Sooke Village Restaurant served Chinese food for a decade before this photo, and today, the same restaurant, right on the corner, serves Indian cuisine.
Payless Gas is shown a bit further to the left – is that where the T.D. bank is today? The CIBC, Sooke’s first bank in 1956, remains next to Village’s large parking lot. Today the Telus structure is alongside Sooke Road.
Bob Hughes built the large flat-roofed building in the lower right quadrant as a bowling alley in the 1960s by Bob Hughes, and since then has housed many enterprises, i.e. library, thrift shop, and food services, including today, Route 14.
Murray Road heads towards the water at the far right in the photo. Just out of the camera’s reach, at the intersection of Sooke, Murray and Otter Point, Sooke’s first traffic light, an exciting event, had been installed in 1983, when Don Rittaler was the regional director. At the time of this photo, Diane Bernard was the last Regional Director before incorporation, which separated the District of Sooke from the Electoral Area, which a Regional Director still serves today.
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Elida Peers is the historian of the Sooke Region Museum. Email historian@sookeregionmuseum.com.
editor@sookenewsmirror.com
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