School Name History

Location

5137 Tolmie Road, Abbotsford, BC 

Opened

1952, on Number 2 Road; 1966, moved to Tolmie Road

The School

The first Barrowtown school opened in 1952. Edward Barrow himself spoke at the opening. It was a one-room school on the corner of Interprovincial Highway and Number 2 Road. There was not enough room for all the students, so fifty Grade 4 and 5 students had to bus to Upper Sumas Elementary. A second room was soon added. 

By 1954, Grades 1-5 were taught in Barrowtown. There were problems with the school’s location, however. It was isolated in the country. In fact, it had no phone in its early years because the school district didn’t want to pay the long-distance charges to Abbotsford. It had two unfenced drainage canals on either side, so there were safety issues. The field became a sea of mud when it rained in the winter.  Students couldn’t play outside, so they worked inside on crafts such as making and flying balsa airplanes and played games such as bowling in the hallway.

In 1966, the school was moved to Tolmie Road. A gym, library, office and two more classrooms were added.

Origin of the Name

Barrowtown Elementary is named after the community.  Barrowtown was named after Edward Barrow. He became the Minister of Agriculture in 1916. His most challenging job as Minister was to direct the draining of Sumas Lake. This was a large lake that flooded every year to three times its size, covering the surrounding farmland. It also was a breeding ground for mosquitoes that made life unbearable for people and livestock in the summer. By draining the lake, more farmland would be created, flooding would stop,and mosquitoes would no longer be a plague. It was a huge, expensive project that involved digging the Vedder Canal to divert the Vedder River and building dykes to hold back the flooding water. A pump station was built to drain the water of Sumas Lake through the Sumas canal into the Fraser River. The draining of the lake took three years and was finished in 1924.