Written in 2003: This magnificent, derelict old ranch stood just south of Highway 3, in rolling, arid land just west of Bridesville (it stood one kilometre east of the Anarchist summit in a gully on what's locally known as the Patterson Road). I first noticed it in the spring of 1995, due to the 2 poplar trees that stand out among the scattered ponderosa pines. A very curious building: Victorian shape, hipped-roofed bay windows on both sides, an unusual shed dormer in its roof that would have provided almost no light to any room I can imagine. Probably a couple of bedrooms upstairs. It had a poured-concrete foundation for its front steps. It looked very 19th-century. There were two gambrel-roofed barns at the time. When I went back past there in 2000 the house and the big barn had burned to the ground, with only the concrete foundations left from the house. According to Penny Dell, arsonists torched the place in 1995. According to Bunny Cox, daughter of Chester Charlton, who was born in the house in 1920, her father was the storekeeper and postmaster in Bridesville. He left his home town of Ilderton, near London, Ontario (where he had been born February 13, 1879), in his youth and moved first to the ranch of a cousin, John Mansfield, who was well-established and prosperous in Manitoba, producing wheat and Hereford cattle, which he drove regularly as far as Oklahoma. Charlton eventually rode across the open plains as far as Townsend, Montana, where he worked for the renowned A.B.Cook Ranch. His employer evidently liked him, and said, "If you ever get a ranch, I'll get you your first good Hereford bull." Eventually, Charton moved north and for a time drove stagecoach into the mining boomtown at Camp McKinney,which introduced him to the area. In 1909, he purchased the Bridesville store and post office, and also bought a quarter-section (later doubled in size) in the rolling bunchgrass prairie south of Bridesville from Frank Kelsey, the pre-emptor. According to family legend, he imported the first registered Herefords into B.C. One of his colleagues, who became a good friend, was Allen Francis Eddy, the immigration and customs officer at Bridesville (a position required as the Great Northern Railway crossed the border to Molson and Oroville, see below, before returning to Canada near Cawston). A few years later he met Helen Wellia, from Cologne, visiting Bridesville in order to see her sisters, who had married Mark and Mike Dumont, owners of a pole and sawmill business. They married in 1914, and Charlton soon began work on the house, engaging builder Malcolm Gordon of Penticton. Probably he was delayed by labour and material shortages caused by the war, extending the construction period through about 1917. Their first child, Alice (in the photos below) was born in Oroville, where there was good medical service; Bunny, christened Bernice, was born "a blue baby" in the house in 1920 with Mrs. Kingsley, the local midwife, presiding. The doctor, who had gone to Molson, Washington, for the day, had been unable to make it back in time. In recent years, by comparison with the days when people and goods flowed casually back and forth between communities like Bridesville and Molson, the international boundary has become like a neat part in a head of hair, with everything on each side directed away from the divide. The old Rock Creek border post closed in the 1970s, and travellers wishing to go back and forth have to use the Midway-Ferry crossing or the Osoyoos-Oroville one to enter the neighbouring country. At the bottom of the Patterson Road below the home site, there are a series of flat pastures with a few derelict ranch buildings and modern homes; in a few spots it is just possible to pick out the old GNR grade along the hillsides.

Alice Charlton with her "uncle," Allen Eddy, and one of the newly planted poplar trees, about 1919.

Chester Charlton and daughter Alice, about 1918

Alice and mother Helen in front of the farmhouse around 1919. (Photos courtesy of Bunny Cox)

Charlton soon moved on, looking for better land, and in 1922 he engaged builder Malcolm Gordon from Penticton to erect a $5,000 house on the Sidley Mountain Road--the much-altered house owned since 1946 by the Harfmans of the Circle 2 Ranch. He was among the first to import Rambouillet sheep into B.C. Later, he built the original log cottages at the Wagon Wheel Ranch at Sidley. His daughters were educated at the Roman Catholic St. Ann's Academy in Kamloops. Charlton died in 1959 and is buried in the Bridesville cemetery.

 

Charlton's second house on the Sidley Mountain Road, built by Malcolm Gordon from Penticton about 1922. A nice solid Craftsman house with a mixture of board siding and shingling on the gables and exposed rafter ends. The house still exists, although it has been renovated and expanded almost beyond recognition.

 

Charlton sold this ranch to Pete Reed of Victoria for a reported $20,000--a very good price at the time.Subsequently it was bought by the Fosters, so the homestead became locally known as the Foster Place. The ranch was actually crossed by a spur of the Great Northern Railway, along the low ground at the bottom of the hill, but as the GNR was exiting BC by 1917 its proximity apparently didn't contribute to the ranch's prosperity (see the Brookmere section for some of that history, and read the addition below about the railway). According to Arthur Harfman, there were three houses built by the same builder, two for Charlton and one called the Schorn house visible on the hillside above Bridesville at the east end of town. Thanks to Penny Dell for the original contact information, and to Norah and Arthur Harfman. Above: the ranchhouse in 1995. Below: I returned to the hills in the spring of 2005 and hiked around until I found a view down onto the site. Just the one, smaller, barn still exists, along with the poplar trees that first caught my eye. As with the old motel sites and homesteads in the Fraser Canyon, it will be the trees that will survive – the only markers of human settlement. The following information gleaned from Anarchist Mountain Settlements by Katie Lacey. (Okanagan Hist society Vol. 16, 1952. pp 112-117) The divisions of the large district are as follows: Haynes Mountain extends from Osoyoos to Nine Mile Creek (i.e. 9 miles from Osoyoos via the Dewdney Trail); Anarchist Mountain from Nine Mile Creek to Johnson Creek, and Rock Creek from Johnson Creek to the Kettle River. R.G. Sidley, the namesake of Sidley Mountain (and the dot on the map called Sidley), came from Ontario, his brother a professor of English at McGill, and took up a homestead in 1885 at the forks of Nine Mile Creek, almost on the 49th parallel. He gave Anarchist Mountain its name and established its first post office. It was the strikes at Camp McKinney that brought settlers to the region. The wagon road from Camp McKinney to Sidley in 1893 brought in the ten-stamp mill for the Cariboo mine at Camp McKinney. The Dewdney Trail to Wild Horse Creek wound around the hill on the south side of Anarchist Mountain, sometimes on the Canadian side of the boundary and sometimes on the American side, depending on the grade. At the time of the Rock Creek gold rush, Chinese packed supplies over the Dewdney Trail, but were waylaid on the US side; subsequently they cut a new trail on the Canadian side, known as the China Road. Charles Coss with his wife and three children arrived in 1894. They came from Lynden over the Dewdney Trail with cattle to homestead. Other early settlers were: Dave McBride, Jim Kehoe, Zeb Kirby, Chester Charlton in 1899; Bill Acres, the Cudworth family, Grahams Higginbottoms, and the Kelseys. Manning Cudworth became the mailman between Midway and Sidley. It was possible to take wagons by way of 9-mile creek to Oroville, where Okanagan Smith still had a trading post. The road from Bridesville to Osoyoos not completed until 1910. Bridesville was first known as Maud, a name given by the postmaster, Hozie Edwards, in honour of his wife. Immediately south of Bridesville is what is now known as Rock Mountain. It was known as One-eyed Mountain because the first three settlers, Delanders, Bozarth and Wilder were all one-eyed. The first school in the Bridesville district was on One-eyed mountain. It was built on Joe Jonson's ranch about the year 1902. * * * Details from Neil Rougley about the railway line, 2004: It was the Vancouver, Victoria & Eastern (a.k.a. the Great Northern), on a line that entered British Columbia at Midway and travelled west along the boundary south of Highway #3, through Bergen, Myers, Myncaster, Syackan, Dumont and then Bridesville. The line then went south into Washington, to Oroville via Molson, then north to cross the boundary again, following the Similkameen River to Keremeos and Princeton and beyond. The line to Bridesville was built in 1905, and there used to be a station in town. The line was cut off from Spokane in 1931 when the section from Curlew, WA to Ferry, WA (across from Midway) was abandoned (known as the Washington & Great Northern), with the Canadian section (from Midway to Bridesville) being officially abandoned in 1935. Bridesville was named after David McBride, a pioneer settler who granted land to the GNR on the condition that the townsite be named after him. Note from John Fleming, Sierra Vista, Arizona, 2005: I read your article on the Bridesville area of BC and it brought back many memories (and a tear or two). During the winter of 1957/58 I spent several months on a ranch owned by a young fellow from Penticton. His name was Dick Byers. Those months were the greatest in my life as I learned so much from Dick and his father Emile. I've often wondered how their life turned out over the years. I don't remember the Charlton ranch, but I think we may have visited or done some work there. It sounds familiar. I'm so sorry to hear of the arson that occurred there. It's a shame that people can't appreciate the historical treasures that are fast becoming a faint memory. I especially appreciate the photos of the Bridesville hotel. I still remember the pot belly stove and the old guys sitting around it telling their tales. The few times during that rough winter of '58 that we were able to make it down there made the trip worth it. Note from a man who didn't want his name used, 2006: I spent quite a bit of time around Bridesville when I was just a kid about 6 years old . I have many memories of the area and I was at the Wagon Wheel Ranch this Sept. and talked with the owners for a few hours. I was able to give them some knowledge of mine and straightened out a few things they couldn't figure out to some degree. I knew a few of the old famillies from the 30's onward but I guess they are all gone elsewhere now. One name that comes to mind is Scaling.  Grandma Scaling held the Sunday School at the Bridesville gazebo for a long time and had a pedal organ brought in every Sunday on a pick up truck. The kids came from everywhere. Note from Don Thomason, of Moses Lake, WA, 2006:  I have reviewed your articles on Sidley, BC with much interest and approval. My mother, Medaine Orthene Gates Thomason, who presently lives in Ellensburg, WA, was born about 5 feet inside Washington State from the Washington/BC border in Molson in 1923. Her parents were John and Emma Gates of Chesaw. John Gates did custom threshing for many farmers around Molson, Myncaster, Rock Creek, and Chesaw. I am a bit mystified as to the reasoning that there is no Customs checkpoint at Molson or Chesaw on the border. Perhaps you can offer some information on this? Personally I feel we are losing a lot of serious knowledge because of having to drive to Oroville/Osoyoos or Midway to access the area just north of Molson or Chesaw and vice versa. My father's sister married Richard Hirst of Molson/Chesaw. I spent a lot of my younger years in that vicinity....sometimes I feel tempted to just go there and walk back and forth across the border, thumbing my nose at the Mounties or Sheriff as the case may be. I'm not sure of the legalities of an American Citizen such as myself breaking any American law by simply crossing that border without benefit of Customs.   1948 photograph of the Bridesville Hotel by "Lythgoe." Photo c. 1920 by an unknown photographer Note from Lloyd Jeck, 2010: I am currently doing some research on BC history and would like to learn about a large herd of horses that was brought into BC from Alberta. I remember reading about this many years ago and do not have much to go on.   But I do remember that these horses came into BC somewhere in the south, possibly Crows Nest Pass. From there they were moved through the Kootenay country into the Okanagan where they spent their first winter in BC. In the spring, after some searching for a place to settle, the people involved moved the horses into the area around Bridesville – not sure exactly where. As I recall it was quite a large number of animals, like more than 300.   If you are able to add to this, or pass on a contact who might know something about this, I would appreciate it.   My wife's Grandparents lived for a few years at Bridesville. Would have been during 1940s. The last name was Kohnke.