| Interior towns are such green oases amongst the browns and
blues of the rugged surrounding countryside. Hedley is the great mining
town in the southwestern Interior. Most people pass it by, acknowledging only the ruined mine works
on the steep hillside, but there is a terrific little town of a few
square blocks of small lots and a main street. Hedley's store, in the watercolour above, is one of the historic buildings to have survived the vagaries of time and the fires of 1956 and 1957. It was likely built soon after the gold strike on Nickel Plate Mountain above the townsite, leading to the building of the Stamp Mill (1904), photo below, and the coming soon after of the GN Railway. Robert Hedley was the manager of the Hall Smelter in Nelson. Nickel Plate gold continued to be mined until 1955. Nearby, on an unclaimed fraction of the mountain, prospector Duncan Woods developed the Mascot Mine, whose ruined buildings perch dramatically on the cliffside above the town. The property is today known as the Barrick Gold (Homestake) Nickel Plate Mine. Note from Dororthy Revington: I'm looking for information on Harold Harrison b. 1887 in Nottingham Eng. emigrated to Canada in 1912. He died at Hedley B.C. in 1967 Nov. 27, where he had been a mechanic. His parents were Henry Harrison and Sarah Ann Sharpe. Would anyone know anything about Harold -- or if he had family there? |
A photograph by an unknown provincial government employee in the 1950s--nearly everything in this scene has disappeared, with only pieces of trellising, foundations and building materials scattered over the hillside
