Period 1887 – 1890

Period 1887 – 1890 for South-western Canada

• 1887
  Enfranchised citizens in the North-West Territories allowed to vote in Federal election.
• 1887
  The Georges Leyson and Bowerman stake the Big Copper claim on Deadwood Creek near Greenwood. Lapsed.
• 1887
  Lake Osoyoos in B.C.: T.J. Kruger family builds large house overlooking lake.
• 1887
  N-WT: The Chas. La Fontaine family settles on “French Flats” at what is now Cowley, AB.
• 1887
  N-WT: Mormon sect of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints buys 9,690 acres of N-WC&N land.
• 1887
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Lethbridge Curling Club organized.
• 1887
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: John Bruce founds a brickyard.
• 1887
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Brick-built St. Augustine’s Anglican completed.
• 1887
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Stone-built Union Bank of Lower Canada completed.
• 1887
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Father Leonard Van Tighem, OMI, arrives.
• 1887
  The Canadian North-West Territories Stock Association becomes the Alberta Stock Growers Association.
• 1887
  B.C.: Fred. Gwatkins and Geo. Sheenan register the Stemwinder claim near today’s Oliver.
• 1887
  Pincher Creek, N-WT.: John Herron family builds the first framed house in the settlement.
• 1887
  N-WT: Second wave of French settlers descends on “French Flats,” now Cowley, AB. Including Alphonse Bouthillier, Philip Fortier, and the Charles La Fontaine family.
• 1887
  Camp McKinney, B.C.: Cariboo vein located off Rock Creek.
• 1887 January
  Lethbridge, N-WT: Barracks completed for N-WMP.
• 1887 Jan. 1
  Alberta, N-WT: Begins the cattle killing blizzard. Eighty days of storm.
• 1887 Jan. 5
  B.C.: Kootenay District divided into North and South Districts.
• 1887 Jan. 14
  Edward Bray, J.E. Humphries, William Fernie and F.W. Aylmer apply to the B.C. government for a permit to prospect for coal in the Elk River valley.
• 1887 Feb. 8
  B.C. political: Honourable Hugh Nelson commissioned lieutenant-governor.
• 1887 Feb. 1
  Lethbridge, N-WT: Fire consumes eight cottages.
• 1887 Feb. 22
  Federal Election: J.A. Macdonald and Conservatives re-elected to power in Ottawa.
• 1887 Feb. 22
  John Andrew Mara (Conservative) elected MP for the District of Yale, B.C.
• 1887 March
  Medicine Hat, N-WT: Boilers stripped from Baroness and sent up to Lethbridge for eventual use in Galt No. 3.
• 1887 Spring
  Lethbridge, N-WT: Galt miners out on strike.
• 1887 Spring
  N-WT: Storm locks the grasses under ice in southern Alberta causing great cattle loses.
• 1887 Mar. 28
  B.C. political: Premier Wm. Smithe dead.
• 1887 Mar. 29
  B.C.: Province grants coal mining Licence Number 21 to Edward Bray, J.E. Humphries, William Fernie and F.W. Aylmer.
• 1887 April
  Baillie-Grohman forms the Kootenay Valleys Company, Limited, in England and gifts it with much of his personal wealth.
• 1887 Apr. 1
  B.C. political: Alexander Edmund Batson Davie selected as conservative premier. (dies in office August 1, 1889).
• 1887 Apr. 7
  Royal assent given to B.C.’s “An Act to aid the Development of Quartz Mines” allows cash advances to $60,000 and a $12,000 grant to erectors of a mill or smelter capable of treating 20 tons of quartz per day.
• 1887 Apr. 30
  First waggon train of Mormon settlers arrive and camp on Lee’s Creek in Southern Alberta.
• 1887 May 2
  Selkirk Mining and Smelting Company incorporated by Chas. E. Pooley, Gustavus Blin Wright, and Edgar Marvin.
• 1887 May 20
  Commissioner Herchmer orders Colonel Samuel Benfield Steele at Fort Macleod to take “D” Division into Ktunaxa territory in the Rocky Mountain Trench.
• 1887 May 23
  First CPR passenger train arrives in Vancouver.
• 1887 June
  N-WT/Montana: Kainai (Bloods) and Issapo (Crows) conclude a brief treaty to discontinue mutual horse stealing.
• 1887 June
  Lethbridge, N-WT: Galt miners again out on strike.
• 1887 June 3
  Mormons found Cardston on Lee’s Creek in the District of Alberta.
• 1887 June 28
  “D” Division arrives at Golden City, B.C.
• 1887 July
  F.P Armstrong’s Duchess capsizes in the Columbia with “D” Division’s supplies.
• 1887 July
  Geo. Leyson and Geo. Bowerman file two claims in the Trail Creek basin.
• 1887 July 1
  Michael Phillipps appointed resident Indian Agent at Tobacco Plains.
• 1887 July 6
  Winslow and Osner Hall register their Kohinoor, American Flag, Silver King and Kootenay Bonanza for their Kootenay Bonanza Mining Company.
• 1887 July 31
  Colonel S.B. Steele and “D” Company of the N-WMP arrive at Galbraiths’ Ferry.
• 1887 Aug. 1
  Post Office opens a bureau at the Daly Ranch near present-day Keremeos.
• 1887 Aug. 18
  Captain John Palliser dies in County Waterford, Ireland.
• 1887 Aug. 23
  J.C. Rykert registers a 320-acre pre-emption (Lot 252) on the Kootenay River just north of the Boundary near what is now Creston.
• 1887 September
  East Kootenays, B.C.: Surveyor T.T. McVittie lays out two lots at the confluence of Big Sand Creek and the Kootenay River. Registered in November.
• 1887 Sep. 2
  Jubilee launched onto Okanagan Lake by Captain Shorts.
• 1887 Sep. 5
  Col. Steele conducts the trial of Kapula and Little Isidore: released for lack of evidence.
• 1887 Autumn
  B.C. government lays out the main street of “McKinneyville” on its own property near Rock Creek Quartz Camp.
• 1887 Autumn
  Medicine Hat, N-WT: N-WC&N sells Minnow to Joseph and François Lamoureux who take it up to the North Saskatchewan River.
• 1887 Oct. 1
  Northern Pacific Railroad leases Corbin’s Spokane Falls and Idaho for 50 years.
• 1887 Oct. 14
  Opening of the 9th and final session of the N-WT Council (ended November 19). Six appointed and 14 elected members.
• 1887 Oct. 15
  East Kootenay, B.C.: Father P.N.J. de Coccola, O.M.I., arrives in the St. Mary’s valley to help Father Fouquet run the St. Eugene Mission.
• 1887 Oct. 22
  First wedding in St. Cyrian’s Anglican on Piikani reserve: Jas. Burgess Miller to Mary Agnes Sexton.
• 1887 Nov. 7
  John T. Galbraith dead (58 yrs.)
• 1887 Dec. 16
  The province grants coal mining Licence Number 25 to F.W. Aylmer, Number 26 to William Fernie, Number 27 to C.S. Lewis, and Number 28 to Peter Creake Fernie.
• 1887 Dec. 19
  Fort Macleod, N-WT.: General Hospital incorporated.
• 1887 End
  Granite City calculated to be the third largest Caucasian settlement in B.C. All but deserted within a year.
• 1888
  Sto:los’ prohibited from fishing commercially.
• 1888
  G.B. Wright buy the Ainsworth pre-emption at Hot Springs on Kootenay Lake.
• 1888
  F.P. Armstrong contracts the construction of his second Duchess (145 tons). Alex Watson of Victoria, builder.
• 1888
  CPR forms the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railway.
• 1888
  Princeton, B.C.: J.J. Jameson finds copper on Copper Mountain.
• 1888
  Ottawa creates a Supreme Court for the N-WT.
• 1888
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church completed (begun in 1887).
• 1888
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Queen’s Hotel opened.
• 1888
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: N-WC&N begins digging vertical shaft of Galt No. 1 opened.
• 1888
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Chas. McKillop arrives as minister to Knox Presbyterian’s congregation.
• 1888
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Captain Richard Burton Deane assumes command of “K” Company.
• 1888
  B.C.: Sicamous (later Shuswap) and Okanagan Railway incorporated.
• 1888
  B.C.: The Government built trail to Rock Creek through Camp McKinney from the Okanagan Band’s community at Nk’mip.
• 1888
  W.A. and Andrew Hendryx register the Kootenay Mining and Smelting Company in Idaho.
• 1888
  Fort Macleod, N-WT.: McLaren Lumber builds a sawmill.
• 1888
  The U.S. drops its import duties on lead.
• 1888
  Great Falls, Montana Territory: Montana Mining and Smelting Company begins smelting.
• 1888
  East Helena, Montana Territory: American Smelting and Refining Company blows in its lead smelter.
• 1888 Jan. 17
  N-WT: Big Bear dies on his reserve near Battleford.
• 1888 Jan. 26
  Charter of the Columbia and Kootenay Railway and Transportation Company cancelled.
• 1888 Mar. 14
  B.C. political: North and South Kootenay Districts re-organized into East and West Districts.
• 1888 Apr. 14
  D.C. Corbin et al charter Spokane Falls and Northern Railway in Washington Territory.
• 1888 Apr. 18
  Federal political: The Dominion “buys back” the guaranteed monopoly on rail line expansion that the CPR enjoyed south of its Mainline.
• 1888 Apr. 28
  The Province of B.C. passes the Crow’s Nest and Kootenay Lake Railway Act: reqires a line of not less than three-foot gauge built from the apex of the Crow’s Nest Pass to the mouth of the Goat River on Kootenay Lake.
• 1888 May 1
  Albert McCleary granted a 320 acre pre-emption at the end of the Fort Colville Trail on what is now the townsite of Castlegar.
• 1888 May 18
  B.C.: R.E. Lemon lands his scow loaded with trade goods and liquor in what is now Mill Pond near Castlegar.
• 1888 May 22
  51 Victoria Chapter 32, “An Act respecting a certain agreement between Canada and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company,” received royal assent, striking Clause 15 of “An Act Respecting the Canadian Pacific Railway, Victoria 41, Chapter 1” which prohibited any entity but the CPR from constructing a line of rail South and West of the CPR Mainline.
• 1888 May 28
  T.A. Sproat granted 320-acre pre-emption on the Pass Creek delta near what is today Castlegar’s Mill Pond. “Sproat’s Landing” mushrooms into existence.
• 1888 June 11
  The Right Honourable Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, 1st Baron of Preston, appointed governor-general of Canada.
• 1888 Summer
  Provincial agent G.M. Sproat visits Sproat’s Landing on a tour of the district. Sets aside a half square mile reserve for the government at what is today Robson.
• 1888 June 27
  Elections held for the Legislative Assembly of the N-WT.
• 1888 July
  Bankhead, N-WT.: Canadian Anthracite Company fails.
• 1888 July 4
  Joseph Royal appointed Commissioner of the North-West Territories.
• 1888 July 6
  Judge J.C. Haynes dies at the Allisons’ ranch near Princeton (Cork, June 6, 1831).
• 1888 July 11
  The Kootenay Mining and Smelting Company launches Galena onto the Upper Kootenay at Bonners Ferry.
• 1888 July 14
  Columbia Transportation Company launches Despatch [sic] (37 tons) onto the Columbia River at Farwell/Revelstoke. Dismantled 1893.
• 1888 July 19
  The Okanagan launched onto Lake Okanagan. Built by Pringle and Harris at Spallumcheen.
• 1888 July 26
  Ex-Hudson’s Bay Company steamer Beaver wrecked in the mouth of Burrard Inlet.
• 1888 Aug. 3
  Edgar Dewdney elected Member of Parliament for Assiniboia East. (returned in 1891 and resigned October, 1892)
• 1888 Aug. 3
  Hayter Reed succeeds Dewdney as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Amédée Emmanuel Forget appointed as Assistant.
• 1888 Aug. 7
  Guided by John George “Kootenai” Brown, Sam Steele and Company “D” leave Ft. Steele to return over the Crowsnest Pass to Ft. MacLeod. Arrive on the 16th.
• 1888 Aug. 7
  W.C. Van Horne elected president of the CPR.
• 1888 Aug. 8
  B.C.: A Thursday. Columbia Transportation Company’s Despatch leaves Revelstoke.
• 1888 Aug. 10
  Captain Robert Sanderson brings Despatch into Mill Pond at what is soon “Sproat’s Landing” to let off his partner, John Frederick Hume, who begins building a warehouse nearby.
• 1888 Autumn
  B.C.: Province orders G.M. Sproat to build what would be named the Kootenay Valley Trunk Trail from the Silver King mine to Sproat’s Landing at the confluence of the Kootenay and Columbia Rivers.
• 1888 Sep. 25
  Honourable Edgar Dewdney appointed Minister of the Interior and Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs.
• 1888 October
  B.C.: Gilbert Malcolm Sproat subdivides his pre-emption on the West Arm of Kootenay Lake and subdivides it into building lots as “Stanley.”
• 1888 October
  The CPR buys the railroad charter of the defunct Columbia and Kootenay Railway and Transportation Company.
• 1888 October
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Scientific and Historical Society founded.
• 1888 Oct. 1
  Northern Pacific Railroad leases Corbin’s Couer d’Alene Railway & Navigation Company for 999 years.
• 1888 Oct. 4
  Sylvia Convert born: first Caucasian child in the Grand Forks area.
• 1888 Oct. 31
  Lieutenant-Governor Royal convenes first session (till December 11) of the first Legislature of the N-WT under the authority of the N-WT Amendment Act of 1888. F.W.G. Haultain head of the advisory council to the lieutenant-governor.
• 1888 Nov. 23
  Fort Macleod, District of Alberta, N-WT.: Board of Trade formed.
• 1888 Dec. 5
  Fort Whoop-Up, District of Alberta, N-WT.: N-WM Police post destroyed by accidental fire.
• 1888 End
  B.C.: Granite City all but deserted.
• 1889
  “Hot Springs Camp” on Kootenay Lake renamed “Ainsworth.”
• 1889
  Osoyoos, B.C.: T.J. Kruger appointed Customs Officer.
• 1889
  Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley, 1st Baron of Preston, the governor-general of Canada, and his entourage process through the West.
• 1889
  B.C.: R.G. Sidley settles on Anarchist Mountain in the Okanagan Highlands.
• 1889
  B.C.: Baillie-Grohman contracts Harry Selous and Fred Lewis to widen what is now called Grohman Narrows at the end of the West Arm of Kootenay Lake.
• 1889
  Tacoma, WA: Dennis Ryan builds a smelter.
• 1889
  Lethbridge, N-WT: Galt No. 2 begun.
• 1889
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Society of Sisters Faithful Companions of Jesus arrive.
• 1889
  I.R. 146, N-WT.: Dept. of Indian Affairs subdivides part of the Siksikah Reserve into 80-acre plots with the idea of transferring them to the private ownership of Reserve residents.
• 1889
  Stand Off, I.R. 148A, N-WT.: Chief Moon first Kainai to get into the haying business.
• 1889
  Stand Off, I.R. 148A, N-WT.: OMI Father Émil Legal takes up residence on the Kainai Reserve.
• 1889
  Stand Off, I.R. 148A, N-WT.: The Anglican Church Missionary Society completes St. Paul’s school.
• 1889
  Waterton, N-WT.: A.P. Patrick files first petroleum claims in Alberta.
• 1889
  East Kootenays, B.C.: Kootenay Land Company acquires properties at the mouth of Big Sand Creek. In the early ’90s Wm. Santo and W.E. Johnson here established a way station on the Kalispell–Fort Steele Road.
• 1889
  B.C.: G. K. Stocker of Spokane visits the Kettle valley and begins to buy land.
• 1889
  D.C. Corbin submits to the B.C. legislature his proposal to build his “Kettle River Valley Railway” up the Kettle valley from Marcus, Washington, and onward to the Coast.
• 1889
  B.C.: Kootenay Valley Trunk Trail completed between the Silver King and Sproat’s Landing.
• 1889
  B.C.: Kootenay Lake Marble Quarry begins operations on Kootenay Lake’s eastern shore opposite Kaslo.
• 1889 Jan. 7
  B.C. Cattlemen’s Association formed at Kamloops.
• 1889 Feb. 14
  The British Columbia Smelting Company on Powell St. in vancouver blows in it s first furnace to treat ore from the Monarch mine near Field, B.C. Couldn’t handle the sulphur contamination and furnace shut down on February 25th.
• 1889 Feb. 16
  Having sold his Idaho railroads to the Northern Pacific, D.C. Corbin takes his own contract to build the Spokane Falls and Northern Railway.
• 1889 Feb. 21
  Kootenay (British Columbia) Smelting and Trading Syndicate incorporated in London with £40,000 capital. Begins building Revelstoke plant. Completed, it worked a few weeks in 1891. The effort was abandoned in ’92, and the remains were carried away by the Columbia in 1899.
• 1889 Mar. 20
  Crown sells 1,350 acres of Elk valley coal lands to Edward Bray, J.E. Humphries, F.W. Aylmer, and Valentine Hyde Baker.
• 1889 Mar. 20
  Canada: 52 Victoria Chapter 50 reincorporates the Alberta Railway and Coal Company.
• 1889 Mar. 25
  The Crow’s Nest Coal and Mineral Company, Limited, is incorporated in B.C.: trustees; Colonel Baker, Wm. and Peter Creake Fernie, Edwd. Bray and J. Despard Pemberton. Capitalization, $2 million.
• 1889 April
  AB.: Kainai ride across the “Medicine Line” on their last great horse raid into Crow country.
• 1889 Apr. 6
  The province of B.C. encharters the Columbia and Kootenay Railway and Navigation Company. R.P. Cooke, A.G. Ferguson, Geo. Turner. Harry Abbott. Capitalized to $5 million.
• 1889 Apr. 12
  Robert Dunsmuir dies at Victoria: age 64
• 1889 May 24
  Carl Sutterly and Charles Wesley Busk register their pre-emptions on properties at today’s Balfour.
• 1889 Summer
  Oliver Bordeau and Newlin Hoover re-register Leyson and Bowerman’s claims in the Trail Creek basin, one of them as the Lily May.
• 1889 July 12
  Geo. Owen Buchanan’s lumber mill at today’s Harrop commences operations.
• 1889 July 17
  Joseph William Cockle files a 320-acre pre-emption on the west side of Crawford Bay.
• 1889 July 29
  Baillie-Grohman’s canal across Canal Flats declared complete: 6700 feet long by 45 feet wide by 11 feet deep.
• 1889 Aug. 1
  B.C. political: Premier Davie dead.
• 1889 Aug. 2
  B.C. political: John Robson selected as conservative premier. (dies in office June 29, 1892)
• 1889 Sep. 16 (18?)
  U.S.A.: James Jerome Hill incorporates the Great Northern Railway.
• 1889 Sep. 18
  Lethbridge, N-WT.: Board of Trade founded.
• 1889 Autumn
  “Stanley,” B.C.: Grand Hotel completed. First permanent hostelry.
• 1889 Oct. 2
  Montana Territory: Great Falls and Canada Railway incorporated.
• 1889 Oct. 18
  Fort Colville, WA.: steel of Spokane Falls and Northern Railway spiked into town.
• 1889 Nov. 1
  East Kootenay, B.C.: Father Fouquet surrenders management of the St. Eugene Mission to Father Coccola.
• 1889 Nov. 8
  U.S.A.: Montana admitted to Union as 41st state.
• 1889 Nov. 11
  U.S.A.: State of Washington admitted to Union as 42nd state.
• 1889 Nov. 20
  Kootenay Smelting and Trading Syndicate accepts first load of ore at Revelstoke building site.
• 1889 Nov. 28
  Right Honourable Sir J.A. Macdonald appointed Minister of Railways and Canals.
• 1889 December
  Corbin applies for B.C. charter for Kettle River Valley Railway and Nelson and Fort Sheppard Railway: refused.
• 1889 December
  Okanagan Landing, B.C.: Jubilee frozen into the ice and sinks in the spring.
• 1889 Dec. 18
  The Crow’s Nest Coal and Mineral Company purchases 960 acres in the Elk River’s valley at the mouth of Morrissey Creek.
• 1889 Dec. 21
  Columbia and Kootenay Steam Navigation Company formed by Captain Robert Sanderson, John Frederick Hume and William Cowan of the Columbia Transportation Company, and Captain John Irving, F.S. Bernard, and John Andrew Mara.
• 1889 Dec. 31
  Alberta Railway & Coal Company (AR&C) leases North Western Railway & Coal Company’s “Turkey Trail.”