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.
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| Richfield, 1886 |
Can you imagine a better name for a mining town
than Richfield? In 1861, William "Dutch Bill" Dietz and other miners discovered
gold on a creek they named Williams Creek. The town that sprang up near the
claim became known as Richfield.
Letters like this one, sent by a miner to his friend, spread the word about the gold diggings and the money to be made:
"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.
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| Richfield, Chief Justice Hunter outside the jail, 191? |
Soon there were several saloons, and to balance
them a jail, a courthouse, and St. Patrick's Roman Catholic church. Richfield
also boasted branches of the Bank of British Columbia and the Bank of British
North America, a French hotel, an express office, a post office, and various
stores. The gold commissioner, Thomas Elwyn, was
stationed at Richfield. There was even a slaughterhouse for the cattle driven
down from the ranches in the Kamloops area - an important source of food for
hungry miners.
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.
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| Barkerville |
Barkerville sprung up overnight in 1862, named
for Billy Barker. Barker struck gold on Williams
Creek, making a fabulous claim which made him and his partners rich - Barker
eventually made $500,000! Lots of other miners rushed to look for claims as
good as Barker's, and the town of Barkerville was born.
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| Barkerville Street Scene |
Barkerville became the largest mining town to be
built in the Cariboo. At its peak during 1863-1864, the town held about ten
thousand residents, almost half of whom were miners working claims in the area.
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)
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| Government Assey Office and Hotel De France, Barkerville, 1869 |
Barkerville was the main community for doing
business in goldrush-era Cariboo. The Cariboo Wagon
Road, started at Yale in 1862, reached Barkerville in 1864.
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.
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| Chinese funeral procession Barkerville |
Barkerville had a strong Chinese community.
"Chinatown" consisted mainly of small shacks warmed by wood stoves; there was
also a laundry and at least one gambling den. The Chinese men - and a few women
and children - were used to farming, so they raised pigs and chickens and grew
vegetables in their backyards. Mining wasn't the only work done by the Chinese;
other occupations included doctor, herbalist, lodging-house keeper,
storekeeper, restaurant owner, and cook.
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.
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| Camerontown |
Camerontown was founded by John "Cariboo" Cameron in 1863. Cariboo Cameron didn't
actually set out to found a town, he just needed to hire lots of people to mine
his claim on Williams Creek. He employed 75 men to work in three
"round-the-clock" shifts.
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)
Camerontown was short-lived, however; in 1867 the library moved to Barkerville, along with the other principle buildings and most everybody else. By the 1870s it was deserted and covered in tailings, and nothing remains of it today.
