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Page last updated February 8, 2004
I believe this place is called the Marlow house--it's one of the very few buildings along the road running from the Beaton turnoff to Trout Lake along Highway 31 in the Lardeau region of the Kootenays. The road follows Beaton Creek, which is marshy and flooding in spots, probably due to beaver dams, the high water seeming to drown the aspens along its bank. On the late-November morning I was there, a clammy mist had risen into the pale sunshine from the rank grasses along the edge.
The house, with attached shed and privy, is about as close as a British Columbia place gets to the house-barn combinations typical of Mennonite farms on the prairies. In this case, though, the old log and frame barn buildings are on higher ground--on the other side of the road.
Note from Rosemarie Parent, Arrow Lakes Historical Society: I see from the last BC Historical News that you have painted the Marlowe house. Milton gives all the info in our book Circle of Silver and if you don't have it, he wrote out the following: The Arrowhead and Kootenay Railway charter was granted to the CPR in the 1890s. The proposal was to run the line from Lardo on Kootenay Lake up through Gerrard and Trout Lake to the Beaton Arm. It would then continue on to Arrowhead to make a conection with the main line at Revelstoke. Although the Gerrard-Lardo section was completed, lack of faith in ore production from the Lardeau mines caused the company to delay further extension until eventually it was abandoned. The Marlow house was originally built as a proposed CPR station by a man named Crawford. He was a CPR man who bought 60 acres on the south side of Trout Lake City, built the house for the above stated purpose in hopes that the line would be finished. Years later, a man by the name of Anderson bought the house and moved it to its present location. Minnie Marlow was the last to domicile there. Her brother, Alan Marlow, is the only remaining member of the family. The old house is abandoned.
