The History of
Lumby - White Valley
The first recorded
settler was a tavern keeper from Hope, Henry Wend.
He was prospecting at Cherry
Creek and along the
Shuswap River. It is believed that his land was on
or near the Coldstream Meadows. There he planned to
built a house of entertainment. There is no
official record of his having filed a pre-emption.
Apparently the miners were too anxious to get their
precious gold to the assayers to bother stopping
over for Wend's entertainment and he disappeared
from the valley.
The first
pre-emptions found at the Provincial Archives in
Victoria were submitted by George
Le Blanc and Thomas
Christien in October of
1874 when these men were working at Cherry
Creek.
The first time
that the name of White Valley was used on a
pre-emption was July 15, 1884 by Casimir
Bonneau, giving some
weight to the claim that Pierre
Bessette used the English
Translation of Le Blanc, in memory of his friend.
On a map drawn by Dr. G. M. Dawson in 1877 the name
appears as Bull Meadows, said to have been given by
Louis Christien because of the bull moose grazing
there. On a later map, drawn in 1888, Bull Meadows
became Bessette and the name White Valley
appears.
The White Valley
Sawmill was built by 1888 by Pierre Bessette and
Charles
Levasseur who sold out to
his partner two years later. It was water powered
and was situated about where the Lumby Medical
Clinic is today. It was said to produce the best
lumber in the Okanagan. When Pierre's brother
Napoleon and
family arrived in White Valley in the spring of
1890, Napoleon leased or bought the mill, leaving
Pierre free to farm his land. By that time he had
one thousand acres in hay and one thousand head of
beef.
The Bessette home
served as post office, store and church. The mail
was brought via Priest Valley on horse back by
Charles
Christien, addressed simply
"Bessette" at first; then on August 1, 1889, it was
officially the White Valley Post Office until
February 28, 1893 when it moved to Seed's store in
the new town site.
Later the mail was
brought in by horses and a rig driven by
John
Genier, who ran the mail
from Lumby to Vernon for forty-eight years. At
first it was by democrat in the summer and sleigh
in winter, to Vernon in the morning and returning
to Lumby by evening, making pick-ups and stop-offs
along the way at White Valley Post Office and
Coldstream Ranch. He would also carry freight. He
brought the first truck into Lumby, a 1911 Ford
A&T. Only the first vehicle was a truck; it was
cars after that so the occasional passenger could
be taken to Vernon and back at a cost of three
dollars per round trip. At that time motorists
still drove on the left hand side of the road as it
was and still is custom in England. It wasn't until
January 1, 1922 that B.C. motorists drove on the
right hand side of the road.
The building
called Family cafe, for some time, was used as the
post office. In 1919 the post office was in a
building belonging to Alphonse
Quesnel, just behind the
present Variety Store of today.
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