Many of the gold mining "towns" began as only a few shacks hastily thrown together around the diggings. They soon grew in size. The miners needed supplies, and craved entertainment. Some of the richest people in the Cariboo were not the miners but the business people who set up provision houses, restaurants, saloons and other establishments. They provided easy ways for the miners to spend their wealth, almost as fast as they could dig it up!

Towns like Richfield, Camerontown, Barkerville, and others had many business establishments serving the traveller and miner alike.

Richfield, 1886

Letters like this one which Cunningham sent to a friend might have brought some of the miners:

"Dear Joe,
I am well, and so are the rest of the boys. I avail myself of the present opportunity to write you a half dozen lines to let you know I am well, and doing well - making from two to three thousand dollars a day! Times good - grub high - whiskey bad - money plenty.
Yours truly,
Wm. Cunningham"

Do you think a letter like this one would lure you to a place? Lots of people who never got any such letter came too of course; maybe they figured the name Richfield would bring them luck.

Richfield, Chief Justice Hunter outside the jail, 191?

The local gold diggings proved to be shallow, and most soon gave out (though Walkers Gulch was still being mined as late as 1922). In the end not many miners got rich in Richfield, and they soon left for more promising places - like nearby Barkerville. The banks and many of the shopkeepers and government people followed.

Barkerville

Barkerville Street Scene

Most of the trees in nearby hills were cut down for lumber to build the houses, shops, and mine shafts, and the resulting flash floods soon made the town very muddy. The houses and shops were raised on posts so as to battle the mud, and wooden plank sidewalks were built.

This is how one frequent visitor described Barkerville:

"It was as lively a mining town as has ever existed in any gold-producing country the world has yet seen, not even excepting the famed and more modern Dawson City, product of the Klondyke excitement. It had the usual gaming rooms, dance halls, saloons, etc., that figure in every camp, but it also possessed a host of sound legitimate businesses."
(Mark S. Wade, The Cariboo Road)

Government Assey Office and Hotel De France, Barkerville, 1869

There was the Wake Up Jake restaurant and Lung Duck Tong restaurant, a hotel, rooming houses, a bakery, a barbershop run by Wellington Moses, a Hudson's Bay Company office, several Chinese shops, a few doctor's offices, St. Saviour's Anglican Church, and a bowling alley. The printing press for the Cariboo Sentinel was in Barkerville; this newspaper was an important source of news throughout the Cariboo.

Chinese funeral procession Barkerville

There were several active Chinese organizations loosely based on clan and birthplace, including the Chee Kung Tong, the Tsang Shang District Association, and Oylin Fangkou. These organizations existed to help their members when they were sick or in distress, provide friendship and entertainment, and to help people communicate with their families in China.

The Chinese community was so well organized, it was able to stage two Chinese operas in Barkerville in 1872! The Chinese also participated in the activities of the larger community; in 1869 they erected an arch at the entrance of Chinatown to welcome visiting Governor Musgrave, and prepared a speech "to offer you a cordial welcome, and to assure you of our loyalty and devotion to the Government of Her Most Gracious Majesty, the Queen".

The town of Barkerville burned down in 1868, in what became known as The Barkerville Fire. Barkerville started rebuilding the day after the first fire, but already the goldrush was dwindling and the town never regained its former glory.

Camerontown

The men lived in a group of cabins which came to be called Cameron's Town and later Camerontown. Eventually the necessary shops, hotels, restaurants, and saloons were also built - and a library too! The library was funded by public subscription and opened in 1864 with John Bowron, the postmaster, as first librarian.

The residents decided to celebrate their new community, as follows:

"The ceremony was performed ... one bright Sunday in August 1864, in the presence of a large and distinguished crowd ... All the miners of the district gathered around, and with due solemnity the parson named Camerontown in deference to the wishes of the people."
(The Province, 9 Nov., 1895)