Div. 1 - Bradner General Store

Bradner General Store (History)– Div. 1 – Tuesday, June 27

Div. 1 Gr. 4/5 Mrs. Sandhu’s class will participate in a walking fieldtrip to the Bradner General Store to partake in a history lesson.

Bradner was named after Thomas Bradner, a settler in the area who homesteaded there in 1895.^[1] A Bradner Post Office was designated in 1912 and Bradner was a station on the British Columbia Electric Railway interurban line from New Westminster to Chilliwack after the expansion in 1910. Bradner is near-totally agricultural in nature, and is noted for its annual show of blooms, as the crops in the area are largely floral, particularly daffodils, a legacy of the many farmers of Dutch extraction who helped found that area's agricultural industry.

In 1928, Mr. Fenwick Fatkin, a recent settler from Vancouver, wanted other local growers to showcase their daffodils and this became the humble beginnings of the famous annual Flower Show.^[2] In the beginning, only 10 types of daffodils were displayed. Today, there are over four hundred, some of which are still of a Fatkin variety.^[3]

Another notable celebration in the Bradner community is the annual May Day parade.