Clark Mackenzie Finch - When C. M. Finch came to Fort St. John, he worked as a clerk at the Revillon Brothers trading post at the Old Fort for a time. However, his dream was to own a store on the plateau where he had homesteaded, where he had envisioned the future settlement would be as homesteaders filed on to the land adjacent to his own quarter section. He saved up his money and eventually had enough to buy supplies which he put on shelves in his log cabin. It was small, but it was a start. Soon, business became steady enough that a separate building was needed. He purchased another quarter section next to the one he already owned and on this site he erected a large store building. The C.M. Finch General Merchandise Farm Utilities Store was completed in the spring of 1929. Besides this building, Finch constructed a government establishment kitty corner to the store which housed the land, telegraph and post offices. Finch further secured the new town core by donating 5 acres of land for a Catholic Church and more for a hospital east of his store. Other buildings were going up around the core and the town was established in its new site.

As Clark Finch's vision of a town began to take shape, his health gave out and he was forced to sell his store in 1943. He lived for only two more years. The centre of town today is still the corner on which C.M. Finch built his store. He truly was the founder of the current Fort St. John and a school bears his name in his honour.

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