Driving past Cloverdale

When I was growing up in Cloverdale in the sixties, the main thoroughfare through town was 176th Street. It was one lane of traffic in each direction, like it is today, except that back then that one lane of travel each way was all the way south to the USA border for the truck crossing and all the way north to Barnston Drive. Or at least I think that’s the name of the street. Turn right to end up at the Barnston Island ferry. Turn left and you end up in Fraser Heights section of Surrey. Back then there was no 176 Street Exit for Highway 1.

So all the traffic trundled along 176th Street through downtown Cloverdale and several blocks of stores and restaurants. We had traffic lights on 60th Avenue and Highway 10. The big semi trucks used this route to get to the border and I remember the concrete streets constantly cracked from the weight of all the traffic.

Back then we had the Thunderbird Drive In on 176th Street a little north of 58th Avenue. One of few choices around for take out burgers and fries and soft serve ice cream. Its last incarnation was Happy Face Burgers, which was closed more often than they were open, and now a pub and cold wine and beer store have been built on the site.

Downtown Cloverdale consisted of the Shop Easy on the corner of 58th Avenue, the five and dime, Duckworth’s, the Clova, Dann’s, Cloverdale Florists, Dr Rife’s dental office, Fraser Printers, Cloverdale Restaurant, the Dale Building, and Ken’s Café, among others. I remember two shoe stores on the main street when I was growing up, but the names have long since escaped me.

But in the early seventies the town merchants and or the City of Surrey decided to build a bypass road around Cloverdale’s downtown core, giving 176th Street a bit of a bend. The Cloverdale Bypass was built starting at the Thunderbird running about half a block parallel to 176th Street. The route crossed Highway 10 and a bridge over the train tracks, and then joined up with 176th Street a couple of blocks later. The real 176th Street ended a block south of Highway 10.

Downtown Cloverdale no longer has big trucks driving along the main street, but sadly no other through traffic either. The five and dime and Duckworth’s closed down by the mid-seventies and countless businesses have opened and closed.