News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

By LeRae Haynes

Historical information compiled by Gloria, George and Peter Atamanenko

There are several historical heritage sites at 150 Mile House: old barns, a court house, a school house, cemeteries and the remains of the old Cariboo Wagon Road, as well as irrigation/drainage ditches.

The courthouse was safely moved at 8 pm Wednesday, thanks to the efforts of the Heritage Steering Committee with the CRD, local residents, businesses, volunteers and the cooperation of the Department of Highways. The current four-laning project in the area nessecitated the move of the historical building to a temporary location until a permanent place can be found for it.

According to a Heritage Assessment in 2007, the court house was described as an ‘early 20th century wood frame house temporarily located to the grassy field just south of Borland Creek near the Cariboo Highway.’

The building’s historical values include the fact that it is representative of the important role of 150 Mile House as a government and service centre during the Cariboo gold rush. The aesthetic value is that it is a good example of a late Victorian bungalow style that projects a somewhat privileged social status for the resident. It is important for various intact original materials, including roofing, cladding and fenestration interior materials.

Local resident George Atamanenko, who is on the Heritage Steering Committee along with Chair Joan Sorely, Branwen Patenaude, Brent Rutherford, Graham Leslie and Jim Gibson was featured on CBC North yesterday talking about the project.

“It would be great for our 150 Mile House community to be established as a heritage community, and would be wonderful to have it achieve park status,” he said. “It was a staging and distribution site for Horsefly, Likely and other areas, and could be a part of a heritage route in this part of BC.”

Like all undesignated and unprotected historic sites, most of the 150 Mile ones are threatened with decay and oblivion. Only the schoolhouse, built in 1890, has been restored and preserved as an historical site.

The old barns and courthouse are reminders of the gold rush era when150 Mile House became a major transportation, supply and administrative centre for the Cariboo region. At present, the barns and courthouse are deteriorating and require heritage designation and protective reconstruction.

The 150 Mile House started as a settlement in 1861, when the Davidson brothers pre-empted a huge homestead following the fertile bottom lands of the San Jose River. Their intention was to farm it.

Close to that time, a Shuswap guide led Peter Dunlevy to a gold prospecting site on the Horsefly River. Prospectors, traders and packers arrived in great numbers, searching for gold in the Cariboo Mountains and the highlands, and working new finds. Heavily laden pack trains and stagecoaches slowly struggled up a difficult road.

Food, shelter and resting stops were needed every few miles: the exact distance depended upon the difficulty of the road. A quiet farm was not sufficient to meet the needs of a changing economy and increased population. There was an urgent need for local food production for travellers and the animals that depended on them.

Resting places had to be provided, as well as secure space for the storage and exchange of goods. The farm changed to meet new demands.

The 150 Mile House was strategically located at the junction of early trails: east and northeast to the gold fields, and west and southwest to the Chilcotin and the Alkali Lake, Dog creek and Canoe Creek areas, where ranching was developing rapidly. Ranching expanded partly in response to the need for food production for the massive influx of population driven by the gold rush.

Photo: A pack train loads up in 1989 at the 150 Mile House, owned by Veith and Borland." 
Click HERE for larger photo.

The original farm at the 150 developed into a roadhouse and commercial centre. Hay and grain were grown for livestock, and meat, vegetables and dairy products were produced for use at the roadhouse and for sale at the store. One traveller in 1863 reported, “The stopping house has a billiard room, lots of geese, ducks and chickens and all kinds of vegetables.”

A number of small enterprises developed: a restaurant, store, bakery, pool hall, blacksmith shop and a steam-powered flour mill which late became a lumber mill.  Community services developed also---a post office, government, police, jail, school and bank. There were also requests for other essential services. A petition to Premier Robson, signed by 143 white male property owners asked that a physician come to reside at or near ‘the 150 Mile centre’ for the benefit of settlers in the community and surrounding regions. A physician did come and stayed for three years before departing for Vancouver Island. His successor was not popular.

A private communication to the Provincial Secretary in that era offered to establish, for a yearly fee, a hospital for the area. It would accommodate twenty paying patients, although two beds would be available to ‘deserving white citizens of the province’ who could not pay the fee, as determined by the Government Agent. No response to this letter has ever been found, and no hospital as established at the 150. In 1907 an indomitable pioneer woman wrote the Premier begging for service in the region, saying, ‘Our need is really great, our nearest doctor is seventy miles away….and every day Indians come to us...In most cases, when an Indian takes to his bad it is the end of him.’ 

In 1871,the colony of British Columbia became a province of the Dominion of Canada. Many governance issues required resolution, among them the rights and needs of aboriginal people whose traditional lands and lifestyles were disrupted by the massive influx of newcomers. In 1879 Chief William (in whose honour Williams Lake is named) made a formal statement to government about the deprivation and hunger that his people were suffering. He feared that their desperate circumstances could lead to war, as had happened to the Tsilhqot’in people in 1864.

During the gold rush era the population of 150 Mile House varied with the seasons. In addition to the ranch, roadhouse and related services, a community grew consisting of resident ranch workers, labourers, trades people and families, as well as transient miners. The large community had social events like dances and winter skating parties as well as heavy gambling in the roadhouse and pool hall.

At the beginning of the Cariboo gold rush, the legendary Judge Mathew Begbie had to hold court in whatever space was available: tent, cabin or pool room. A courthouse was needed, and one was established at 150 Mile House during the time that it was the transportation and administrative centre for the Cariboo.

After its first use as a courthouse, the building had a variety of other applications that reflected changes in local economy and demographics.  At one point, it was the home of the local policeman, Constable George Bell and his family. A jail cell was built right into the home, and when the Constable was out on a call, Mrs. Bell had to provide meals to a prisoner.

It also served as a private home for one family named Rose, and was called ‘the Rose House.’

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