Community ties in Wycliffe
Houses sprung up in Wycliffe with the Staples Company in full bloom - Image courtesy of the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History In his series "Wycliffe in the Early Days," George James has the following memory of the town's growth. "It was a regular beehive of industry. Houses were springing up everywhere until...
Railway Logging and Wycliffe
Railway logging in East Kootenay c. 1910 Otis Staples was a visionary. He came to British Columbia from Minnesota, having cut himself out of his timber limits there. He wanted new territory, sizeable merchantable timber, and access to the vast land. The standard way of logging in East Kootenay in the very early 1900s was to...
Sawmill of the Otis Staples Lumber Company
Otis Staples Lumber Company sawmill was located adjacent to the St. Mary's River - Image courtesy of the CBIRH The Cranbrook Herald in 1904 stated that Otis Staples had secured "a large area of first-class timber on Perry Creek and as a result, he has now in the neighbourhood of 12,000 acres ranging from St. Mary's...
WALDO STOCKBREEDERS' ASSOCIATION - Virtual Exhibit
The Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History is pleased to announce our latest undertaking, the Waldo Stockbreeders' Association (WSA) Project.We wish to thank our sponsors, the Regional District of East Kootenay and the Columbia Basin Trust through the Community Initiatives grant, for helping us to realize our vision to...
Skookumchuk in the Rockies: Undertakings of the Staples Family - Naming of Wycliffe -
Part one of our series sponsored by the Regional District of East Kootenay and the Columbia Basin Trust: Overview of Wycliffe and the Otis Staples Lumber Company - Image courtesy of the Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History As with many aspects of history, the naming of Wycliffe is a little unclear. Bonnie McLean claims...
