People uprooted from Langley / Langley Prairie / West Langley (70)

Langley was established by non-Indigenous settlers in the late 1820s. An Indigenous village stood near the Hudson’s Bay Company’s (HBC) Fort Langley when it was established in 1827. Agricultural activity expanded in the 1830s, and the HBC developed a 2,000-acre farm at Langley Prairie, southeast of the fort. The original fort was abandoned in 1839, a second fort burned down in 1840, and a third and final fort operated until 1886. During the 1860s, the HBC farm pushed new settlers inland to the area that became the present-day City of Langley.

In 1877, the HBC subdivided its farmland into hundred-acre lots for sale to settlers. Although Fort Langley and Murrayville had long served as the area’s administrative, commercial, and cultural centres, the arrival of the BC Electric Railway in 1909 spurred growth at Langley Prairie. A store built at the intersection of Yale Road and the railway became the centre of a rapidly expanding community.

Most Japanese Canadians in Langley were farmers specializing in fruit and vegetable production. In 1918, Fusajiro Takeda purchased twenty acres of uncleared land near Langley Prairie. He and his new wife Yoshi returned in 1920 to clear and develop the property, expanding the farm in 1936. Around 1922, the Fukumoto family purchased a farm in Fernridge (now south Langley), where they cleared five acres for crops and raised 1,200 laying hens. The Kitagawa family arrived in 1930 and acquired 160 acres, fifteen of which were cultivated for produce. Some Japanese Canadian residents attended the Buddhist temple in New Westminster for special occasions.