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.