164 British Columbia Women’s Institutes

Kettle River District

The Kettle River District is actually the western extremity of the
West Kootenay District, and lies between the Anarchist Mountain summit
on the southern trans-provincial highway where the elevation is 4,055 feet,
and the Santa Rosa Mountain summit on the same highway, approximately
70 miles east above Christina Lake, where the summit has an altitude of
5,280 feet. ‘The southern boundary is the international border to Washing-
ton State. ‘Though a part of the West Kootenay, this area has maintained
its own identity, and has been known from its earliest history as the
“Boundary Country”.

The search for gold brought the early settlers to all parts of this district.
Placer gold was discovered in Rock Creek, and Boundary Creek, in 1857,
and thousands of miners rushed in, many came from the depleted gold fields
in California. Within weeks there were 5,000 people in Rock Creek. Ore
was found in the surrounding hills, and the prospectors combed the entire
country and left no stone unturned. Smelters were built at Boundary Falls,
Greenwood and Grand Forks within a few years to smelt the gold and
copper for shipment. Camp McKinney, at the foot of Baldy Mountain,
was a gold mining camp and the gold bricks were carried out by pack
train. ‘There is a true story and unsolved mystery of the missing gold
brick, which is supposedly still hidden somewhere in the area. ‘The man
who had cached it was shot while on his way back to his stolen treasure
after serving a jail term.

Overhead trams carried ore in buckets from the No.7 Mine and
Lone Star Mine to the smelter at Boundary Falls, approximately 17 miles
by tram. A power plant was built at Boundary Falls to provide for the
smelter there and the city of Greenwood, founded by Robert Wood.

The smelter at Greenwood treated the ore from Motherlode, Dead-
wood and Copper Camps. ‘The Canadian Pacific Railway built a branch
line from Greenwood to Deadwood and Motherlode to bring down the
ore for smelting. Greenwood was incorporated as a city in 1897, and was
a thriving, booming town with 30 hotels, and a population of several
thousand. Stage coach lines connected with all points and there was
service to the outside world, as well as to the mining camps within the
District. ‘The Kettle Valley line of the Canadian Pacific Railway services
this area through from Vancouver to Nelson, it enters the Boundary at
Carmi and leaves it at Christina Lake. Beaverdell on the West Fork of the
Kettle River, about 40 miles west of Rock Creek has been an important
silver mining area for many years. The best known property, the Highland
Bell is reputed to be one of the richest silver mines in the British Empire.

The ore from the Phoenix mines was taken by rail to Grand Forks
where a smelter was built for this purpose.