Grand Bank Information

An important part of the Nineteenth century economy was the supplying of bait to the French. This came to an abrupt halt with the Bait Act of 1888 but it only altered the town's economic base. The Bank fishery, which began in the 1880's, was now prosecuted in earnest and accounted for the great prosperity of Grand Bank at the turn of the Twentieth Century.

Architecturally Grand Bank is interesting because it has a far heavier Concentration of a single style of architecture than any town in Newfoundland with the possible exception of St.John's. Most of Grand Bank's earlier houses are built in a variety of forms of the Queen Anne style which was popular in England and America from 1870 to 1890. Most of these houses survived unaltered -- a tribute to the prosperity as Well as the sense of heritage of Grand Bank residents.