Princeton's Settler Story

We start our tour of Princeton's history at the former site of the Princeton Brewing Company, which was renowned for its Old Gold Lager. The brewery opened at the beginning of the last century and operated under various names until 1961, when the company went under and the brewery was subsequently demolished. As you can see, the concrete foundations built into the sandstone wall remain.

Here we see a group of young men posing with the old sign that welcomed visitors to Princeton, which was once located a bit further up the road. They look like they are celebrating an occasion, perhaps graduation, and they are clearly proud of the town they call home.

A horse-drawn sleigh is parked outside the Similkameen Hotel, which was located on roughly this spot in the early 20th Century. In those early years, hotels like this were a welcome sight for exhausted travellers who made the gruelling trek to Princeton along the Dewdney Trail, which had been painstakingly cut from the mountain slopes by a company of Royal Engineers.

On the left is the Similkameen Hotel, which we saw in the last photo. On the right is the old courthouse, which was responsible for dispensing justice in the Similkameen District. There was one local "loveable rogue" that many of the people of Princeton would have preferred to see escape justice. If you've ever said the phrase "Hands up!", you'll owe him a debt; he was the one who coined that saying.¹
He was Bill Miner, Canada's last great train robber.

This photo was taken at the unveiling of Princeton's cenotaph by Lieutenant Governor Robert Bruce. It was a solemn occasion, for Princeton had paid a steep price in the First World War, and her citizens would soon be called upon to sacrifice again in the second.
In the census taken just before the war, the town's population stood at around 500, with about 1,500 total in the surrounding region. Of that number, some 110 men joined the armed forces, about 8% of the total population—and this is almost certainly an undercount, owing to the way enlistment records were gathered at the time. Sixteen of these men never returned home from the front. In the Second World War, the story was much the same. Over 350 veterans are listed in the roll of honour, and 14 of them perished.
When looking at this humble cenotaph, it is easy to forget that behind each engraved name is a story of bravery and tragedy that is interwoven with—and helped shape—some of the most important events in modern history.

A group of striking miners marches down Bridge Street. They were men from the Tulameen mine, joined by other miners and sympathizers as they fought against a cut in wages at the height of the Great Depression. This labour dispute quickly escalated into a vicious struggle for the town's future. It was a pivotal moment in Princeton's history that was chronicled for the first time in the fascinating 2015 book Soviet Princeton, by local historians (and singers) Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat.

The substantial brick building you see on the corner here was the Princeton Hotel. It was the last and most glamorous in a succession of hotels that played a key role in Princeton's history.
When it opened in 1912, the Princeton Hotel was the only brick building in town. It boasted 40 rooms, electric lighting, indoor plumbing, and a licensed bar that would become the town's longest continuously operating bar (with the exception of the Prohibition years). Several businesses called the hotel home over the years, including the Bank of Montreal, the telephone offices, doctors' offices, restaurants, a tobacconist, a barber, a pub, and a retail liquor outlet.

A dentist's stagecoach has drawn up in front of the Hotel Jackson during the dentist's rounds from community to community in BC's interior. Before the highway or railway, horses were all-important in connecting Princeton with the outside world.
"No community in BC relied so heavily on the horse as did Princeton," writes Laurie Currie in Princeton: 100 years "Cut off from the Coast by the impenetrable Hope mountain range, the slowness of the construction of the highway to Hope, and the ruggedness of the area, the horse had a tremendous advantage over any other means of travel."

A huge crowd has gathered for one of Princeton's famous rock-drilling contests. In these contests, miners displayed their skills with a hand drill by seeing who could put the deepest hole in a big rock. According to one historian, these contests were "the major events of the day." It is hardly surprising that such an activity would become popular in Princeton, surrounded as it is by a constellation of mines and a number of little satellite towns to serve them.

A group of men saddle their horses in front of the Tulameen Hotel, preparing to depart across the bridge in the background. Once they crossed the bridge, they could turn to the right, along the Old Hedley Road or the Princeton Summerland Road, which was used by the Allisons as a track for herding cattle to the Okanagan in the 1860s.
If they turned left, they could follow the path of the Tulameen River, up towards the mining towns of Coalmont and Tulameen. That route also led to a town that was once the third largest in British Columbia, but has been all but forgotten for decades: Granite Creek.

A look down the bustling Bridge Street, showing a pool hall, bakery, hotels, general stores, and livery stables. The people who lived in Princeton at this time and frequented these businesses formed a colourful cast of characters. Everyone seemed to know everyone, and everyone seemed to have an affectionate nickname with a colourful backstory.

At first, this was the site of a livery stable, but by the time this photo was taken, it had become Burr Motors, a central feature of Bridge Street for decades. The switch from a stable to a garage was a sign of the changing times, as the people of Princeton retired their horses in favour of the newfangled automobiles that appeared in ever increasing numbers.

Members of the PSC, the Princeton Ski Club, pose in front of the Thomas Bros. General Merchants store. They've got their cross-country skis on and are probably heading for an outing at the "A" Hill overlooking Princeton. The club was formed by a core of Norwegians and Swedes who lived around Princeton in 1924 and was led by the legendary Norwegian Andy Stenvold. They brought their love of ski jumping from Scandinavia and erected great jumps at the local hills, which attracted some of the world's foremost ski jumpers.

A view of the east side of Bridge Street in the 1940s, showing how many of the empty lots from earlier decades have been filled in and how the community has grown substantially.
By this time, Princeton was outgrowing its pioneer roots, which led to fierce debate about the community's future. Princeton's history as a mining town had created a peculiar situation: for decades, it had never been incorporated as a town or even a village. This meant there was no municipal government, and negligible municipal services, which led to an unpleasant article in 1930 that referred to Princeton as the "dirtiest hole in the Interior."¹

A man with his hands thrust in his pockets mugs for the camera. Behind him, Bridge Street is largely empty, save the headquarters of the Similkameen Star, which we saw earlier on in the tour. Photos like these remind us of the dramatic changes Princeton has undergone, and the people who have made it what it is today.