The Victory Square Cenotaph was unveiled on 27 April 1924 Boyd & Clendenning were contracted by the CPR to begin felling the forest at a rate of $26/acre ($64/ha) and an extra $2/acre ($4.9/ha) for lopping off large branches.

A tangled mass soon built up to 6.1 metres (20 ft) thick that was to be the kindling for the great fire that leveled the townsite.

[1] It was down the park's hillside that the clearing crews of the CPR entered Gastown a few steps ahead of the firestorm that destroyed the city on June 13, 1886, heading for their quarters in the Regina Hotel at Cambie and Water where they had themselves stored water and wetted blankets as safety precaution (it was the only building in that part of the city to survive the fire).

Until that year, however, the site of Victory Square as with all of the downtown peninsula outside of Gastown had been dense west coast rainforest, with trees standing in dark, thick groves hundreds of feet high and also a small creek (now vanished).

During the old courthouse's tenure the vicinity was the hub of the city's financial and legal district, with the Vancouver curb exchange operating just across Hastings Street, mostly in a passageway cutting the corner diagonally behind the Astor Hotel (see photos in External links).

The pillar is of Nelson Island granite engraved with suitable inscriptions, and is kept continuously banked high with wreaths of flowers and adorned with national flags.

The cenotaph was unveiled by William Reid Owen, Mayor of Vancouver, in the presence of an assemblage of 25,000 persons; naval, military and civilian, and including the Old Contemptibles, 7th British Columbia, 29th Vancouver, 72nd Seaforths, 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles, 47th New Westminster, and 102nd North British Columbian Battalions, CEF, and others, on 27 April 1924.

The ornamentations on the stone include one long sword and two wreaths, one of laurels, the other of poppies; both entwined with maple leaves.

In his valedictory address, Major Owen said: "Those whose sacrifices this Cenotaph commemorates, were among the men who, at call of King and Country, left all that was dear, endured hardship, faced danger, and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty, giving their own lives that others might live in freedom.

The site of the Cenotaph is significant because it was at tables at the foot of the old courthouse steps where men signed up for the First World War in 1914—which was symbolic for the enlistees because of the strong royalist sentiment in the city, as it was on the courthouse steps where the main ceremonials of the various royal visits to Vancouver had taken place.