Ktunaxa at Colonel Baker's House

March 8th, 2023 1 Minute

Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History(CBIRH) and Cranbrook Archives – 0366.0023 (As seen in ‘Forgotten Cranbrook A Photo History of Early Cranbrook & District written by Wild Horse Creek Press publisher Keith Powell, editor and co-authors Erin Knutson and Derryll White of the CBIRH

Pielle Tete de Fer, Peter, the discoverer of the St. Eugene Mine and his fellow Ktunaxa members astride their horses were featured outside what was presumably Colonel Baker’s place in Cranbrook, B.C., in this photograph dated c. 1910.

At this time, Cranbrook had developed a reputation as the ‘largest town in the Kootenays.’ Beattie and Atchison (an early drug store) published a commercial album that proclaimed it as such. “Population 4,000, beautifully situated, is the centre of a large lumbering and mining district.

Divisional point of Canadian Pacific Railway. Fruit lands, fishing, hunting, climate and scenery of the St. Mary’s Valley and Lake finest in British Columbia of which Cranbrook is the centre; many beautiful drives within a short distance; the celebrated St. Eugene Mission six miles from Cranbrook.” Colonel Baker was responsible for naming the city and was one of the earliest investors in the area.